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End stage renal failure
Hi I'm new to this forum and stumbled onto it while looking for help with my dog not eating. I have a 15 1/2 year old toy poodle named Chloe. She was my daughter's Christmas present in 1994 but has really become my dog over the years. I have noticed Chloe not eating as much and losing weight but attributed it to her advanced age and problems with arthritis. We had her at the Vet's office 3 months ago and he told me she was in pretty good health for her age with the exception on a slight decrease in kidney function and suggested putting her on KD. She has always eaten dry dog food but did not like the KD and I started mixing it with chicken broth to try to get her to eat better. When that failed, I started trying out different foods. They didn't work much better. After a trip to the Vet on April 12, the Vet called and said Chloe was in end stage renal failure. I saw a different Vet from the one I had seen before. She told me her creatinine level was at 6 and wanted to get it down to 3 so they kept her for a couple of days. I told them she would not eat the dry KD so they put her on canned KD and gave her some IV treatments. When I called to check on her they told me her level was down to 4 and let her go home. I went to pick her up and was given a very expensive bill along with a case of KD. The Vet also told me she had some loose stools and gave me pills for that with the recommendation that she take them twice a day. When I got her home I fed her the KD which she ate a little of and then the pill for the loose stool. She started to heave and I took her outside and she staggered, fell, and vomited. She didn't have any more loose stools so I did not give her any more of the pills as they made her so sick. The following day I again offered the KD but she refused to eat it. I called the Vet and she gave me a prescription for canned Royal Canin. She has only eaten small amounts of that and in fact it has taken 2 days to eat 3/4 of one can. She is not drinking as much water either. Has anyone had any luck with a diet I found on line consisting of ground beef, white rice, egg, and white bread slices? It is breaking my heart to see her starving to death. We have given her thin sliced turkey that I'm sure is not good for her since it is processed just to get her to eat something. Of course she readily eats that. I have read many heartbreaking stories on here and as hard as it will be for me, I know I will do the humane thing and put her down once she is unable to hold anything down. This disease seems hopeless and I am very sad.
I am so glad to hear that she is eating a little.I will keep you both in my prayers.Take care.
Kidney failure is one of the hardest things to accept in our pets. We lost our dog Chica to kidney failure in January 2008. She was sick for a good 6 months and showed no symptoms until it was too late.
Here are some kidney failure facts I learned along the way:
1. There is no cure. Period. Once kidney cells die, they are gone forever and the body cannot make more like say, the liver.
2. That means you want to preserve what kidney cells remain. Use plain Tums once or twice a day as a supplement. They're pure calcium and calcium binds to phosphorus and sweeps it out of the body. Phosphorus is deadly to kidneys in failure. There is in expensive product called Azodyl that accomplishes the same thing, but I found the Tums to be much more effective. If you don't know how to "pill" your dog, have your vet show how to do it quickly and easily.
3. On diet, your dog will suffer from malnutrition sooner rather than later if you stick with a KD diet for long. It's not so much that you want to limit all protein, but rather find a more digestible form that is low in phosphorus. Dark poultry meat (boiled, no seasoning) is a good cheap form of acceptable protein. Scrambled eggs are also good, but use only half the yolk or less as the yolks are high in phosphorus. Your vet should be able to provide you with low-phosphorus dog food recipes. One popular one is to use high-fat, cheap hamburger meat. Brown it thoroughly, drain thoroughly and mix in plain cooked white rice.
4. If your dog isn't able to stay hydrated, offer low sodium chicken broth - anything to keep fluids up. You may have to learn how to give sub-q (just under the skin) injections to supplement hydration.
5. Once a dog is actually in end-stage kidney failure, it's more important to get him to eat anything - even if it's on the No list - rather than nothing. The calcium in the Tums will help a great deal to keep nausea and vomiting down in addition to saving what kidney function remains. Avoid organ meats as they're very high in phosphorus. Add plain white rice for carbohydrates to any dark poultry meat or hamburger. Plain yogurt is also a good choice to mix in or offer by itself.
6. Kidney failure causes nausea and vomiting because the toxins normally filtered by the kidneys are now in the bloodstream. There are several medications that can help. Cerenia is expensive, but effective. Most vets rely on reglan tablets, but beware. Reglan is metabolized in the kidneys and it doesn't take long to build up to a toxic dose. The symptoms aren't pretty. The dog staggers around shaking and trembling, unable to sit still, eyes spinning in their sockets, panting, etc. Benadryl at 1 mg per pound of the dog's weight will stop the symptoms. We did find that reglan injections did not produce this reaction. Sometimes all you have to do is bypass the GI tract to avoid side effects with meds, and this was one of those times.
Phenergan is a very cheap medication that not many vets even know about as a very effective anti-nausea agent. It worked the best on our dog once we learned she could take it. I have crhonic nausea myself and always have phenergan on hand. When any of my dogs get into a nauea and barfing episode, 12.5 milligrams knocks it out within 15 to 20 minutes.
7. The idea is to keep your dog as comfortable as possible, and as long as possible. That means calcium supplements, homemade boiled foods, vitamin supplements (read labels for phosphorus content - senior vitamins have little to no phosphorus) and most important, anti nausea meds. Don't expect your dog to keep up with regular mealtimes. Keep offering food in small amounts several times a day. Same goes for water. Some dogs like various flavors of Gatorade better than plain water, or even ice cubes, so experiment a bit.
8. Believe me, you will know when it's time to say goodbye. Once the toxins in the blood reach high enough levels to cross the blood-brain barrier, you probably won't even be able to get a response from your dog. Copious vomiting and dry heaving usually occur by then because no medication can keep up with the toxins. It's more heartwrenching than I can say to have to make that last trip to the vet, but still the kindest thing you can do for your suffering friend. Meanwhile, treasure every good moment that happens in every day. You'll probably find that your dog will cycle back and forth from good to bad several times in any given day.
Feel free to write any time. You aren't at all alone in this. :-)
Here are some kidney failure facts I learned along the way:
1. There is no cure. Period. Once kidney cells die, they are gone forever and the body cannot make more like say, the liver.
2. That means you want to preserve what kidney cells remain. Use plain Tums once or twice a day as a supplement. They're pure calcium and calcium binds to phosphorus and sweeps it out of the body. Phosphorus is deadly to kidneys in failure. There is in expensive product called Azodyl that accomplishes the same thing, but I found the Tums to be much more effective. If you don't know how to "pill" your dog, have your vet show how to do it quickly and easily.
3. On diet, your dog will suffer from malnutrition sooner rather than later if you stick with a KD diet for long. It's not so much that you want to limit all protein, but rather find a more digestible form that is low in phosphorus. Dark poultry meat (boiled, no seasoning) is a good cheap form of acceptable protein. Scrambled eggs are also good, but use only half the yolk or less as the yolks are high in phosphorus. Your vet should be able to provide you with low-phosphorus dog food recipes. One popular one is to use high-fat, cheap hamburger meat. Brown it thoroughly, drain thoroughly and mix in plain cooked white rice.
4. If your dog isn't able to stay hydrated, offer low sodium chicken broth - anything to keep fluids up. You may have to learn how to give sub-q (just under the skin) injections to supplement hydration.
5. Once a dog is actually in end-stage kidney failure, it's more important to get him to eat anything - even if it's on the No list - rather than nothing. The calcium in the Tums will help a great deal to keep nausea and vomiting down in addition to saving what kidney function remains. Avoid organ meats as they're very high in phosphorus. Add plain white rice for carbohydrates to any dark poultry meat or hamburger. Plain yogurt is also a good choice to mix in or offer by itself.
6. Kidney failure causes nausea and vomiting because the toxins normally filtered by the kidneys are now in the bloodstream. There are several medications that can help. Cerenia is expensive, but effective. Most vets rely on reglan tablets, but beware. Reglan is metabolized in the kidneys and it doesn't take long to build up to a toxic dose. The symptoms aren't pretty. The dog staggers around shaking and trembling, unable to sit still, eyes spinning in their sockets, panting, etc. Benadryl at 1 mg per pound of the dog's weight will stop the symptoms. We did find that reglan injections did not produce this reaction. Sometimes all you have to do is bypass the GI tract to avoid side effects with meds, and this was one of those times.
Phenergan is a very cheap medication that not many vets even know about as a very effective anti-nausea agent. It worked the best on our dog once we learned she could take it. I have crhonic nausea myself and always have phenergan on hand. When any of my dogs get into a nauea and barfing episode, 12.5 milligrams knocks it out within 15 to 20 minutes.
7. The idea is to keep your dog as comfortable as possible, and as long as possible. That means calcium supplements, homemade boiled foods, vitamin supplements (read labels for phosphorus content - senior vitamins have little to no phosphorus) and most important, anti nausea meds. Don't expect your dog to keep up with regular mealtimes. Keep offering food in small amounts several times a day. Same goes for water. Some dogs like various flavors of Gatorade better than plain water, or even ice cubes, so experiment a bit.
8. Believe me, you will know when it's time to say goodbye. Once the toxins in the blood reach high enough levels to cross the blood-brain barrier, you probably won't even be able to get a response from your dog. Copious vomiting and dry heaving usually occur by then because no medication can keep up with the toxins. It's more heartwrenching than I can say to have to make that last trip to the vet, but still the kindest thing you can do for your suffering friend. Meanwhile, treasure every good moment that happens in every day. You'll probably find that your dog will cycle back and forth from good to bad several times in any given day.
Feel free to write any time. You aren't at all alone in this. :-)
I just wanted to check on your baby and see how she was doing.I hope that she is eating a little better for you today.You two are in my prayers ...May God Bless You.
Thank you so much for the advice. I am definitely dreading the day when she does start to get really sick. This is such a cruel disease. One of my sisters had to put her dog down because of renal failure so I know what is coming. In the meals I prepare for Chloe I have crushed up Tums. She eats but not much. Some days she sort of staggers around and other days she looks perky and almost back to normal.
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