I am sorry about your cat. I am myself thinking about CoQ10 for my cat in early stage of CRF (and mildly hyper-T) on people's suggestions. They report it makes a difference for their cats who are both Hyper-T and CRF). The dose they use is 30mg once a day. I have asked my vet about several dietary supplemens, and she said she would get back in touch with me. Hopefully, she will...

I am sure you have come across this site: Tanya's Feline CRF Info. Center. Scroll down to dietary needs, also to holistic treatments for supplements. This site is the bible for people with CRF cats. You can also join the yahoo support group for CRF cats.

I, too, would love to hear from people using CoQ10 with their cats...
Best of luck,
Anne-Marie

I worked in a Dialysis unit for 25 years and never heard of that being used let alone curing kidney disease. As far as I know it is used mainly for hearts

Thanks, Anne Marie. I will check out the Feline CRF Info. Center and the Yahoo support group.

Beegood. Well, it claims to have been research, so perhaps more research needs to be done...or, who knows, there may be something bogus about this article I came across. In general, I am mildly skeptical about things that claim to cure incurable diseases, when they are not being used by the mainstream, but at this point, anything seems worth a shot, so long as it is not actually harmful.

Biwako, some members using CoQ10 for hyperT AND kidney issues only give 15 mg/day to help strengthen the heart. Does your cat only suffer from kidney insufficiencies? I do recommend that you talk to your vet about an appropriate dose for your own cat, but a low dose is always better at the start.
For kidney issues, many use RENAFOOD (dietary supplement) and omega-3 fatty acids (salmon oil, fish oil).
Good luck, Anne-Marie

A compromise (given real lack of info on the CoQ10 and dosage concerns) would be to feed her a sardine or two each day. Sardines are one of the few foods high in CoQ10 plus Omega 3s and B vitamins. All good supplements for your kitty but delivered naturally through food so you don't have to worry about dosage. And much easier than giving her another pill.

Cynthia, yes sardines are full of great stuff if your cat goes for fish! However, I might be concerned about the phosphorus level (not good for CRF cats).
Anne-Marie

I only wish I could give her sardines. I'm sure she would love them, but unfortunately, almost any amount of any fish makes her vomit. Could it be an allergy? She has been this way for years.

I gave her CoQ10 for two days after writing here--only 1 drop each time--and then I took what remained myself! Those two days, she didn't eat after having the supplement, and I was a bit worried it was nauseating her, so I stopped. It was a relief when the next morning, and again today, she acted hungry. I may try a tiny bit again some day when she seems to be doing well.

Tanya's site has so much great information that I know I will be reading it again and again. Many thanks for everybody's suggestions.

Do Not give your cat Sardines or any type of fish; its high in phosphorus, & phosphorus aids in the advancement of kidney disease. Give your cat Co Enzyme (c0q10) supplements. Here is a protocol for administration;

1) Get gel capsules instead of tablets. Gel capsules have a liquid form of the enzyme that is more readily absorbed than solid forms.

2) If the lowest gel capsule dose you find is 100mg, snip the capsule in two with non-corroded scissors. Give half a capsule (50 mg) once a day. If you want to stick to the 30 mg protocol (i.e if the cat is particularly small), snip a smaller piece out of the capsule.

3) Purchase ubiquinol (the reduced, bio available form of C0q10) instead of ubiquinone (the non-reduced form of c0q10). Studies using ubiquinol (instead of ubiquinone) show more promising outcomes.

C0q10 helps prevent apoptosis (Cell death) which is how kidney disease advances. Thus in the least, it will stop the advancement of your cat's kidney disease & stabilize the condition.
In some cats, c0q10 can raise liver enzymes. Therefore, get the cat regular blood tests. If a blood test shows any liver enzyme elevation, stop the Coq10, wait about a week and a half to two weeks for the enzymes to normalize, re-do the blood chemistry panel if possible and then re-start giving the cat c0q10. It's benefits far out weigh any potential for side effects, the most prominent one being the liver enzyme elevation. Also do regular blood tests if your cat is hyperthyroid and watch for any elevation of t4 values, lest you need to administer a higher dose of carbimazole/methimazole or take the cat for I-131 radio-active iodine treatment. This is an important part of the c0q10 treatment as hyperthyroidism robs the cat's body of its c0q10 and thus aids in the advancement of both heart and kidney disease. Good luck!

B. Khan

Thank you all for your comments! I seem not to have gotten notices about a few of them in the middle, but received B. Khan's message in an email today.

The cat I first wrote about here died in Dec. or 2012 at 19 years of age, after 3 years or so of serious kidney disease. In her case, Azodyl seemed to have no effect on her vomiting, so in the end, I relied entirely Ubiquinol and a home-made diet based on "Dr. Becker's Real Food for Healthy Dogs and Cats" (early edition).

Someone named Jackie, who was having trouble getting messages posted, emailed me privately with a lot of good advice, particularly about the use of Ubiquinol.

The veterinarian was greatly surprised at how long my girl remained in good condition, saying more than once, that she was "off the charts." I think she actually lived 2 years or more beyond the time when he had expected her to be on her last legs, and she was still eating and seemed comfortable and reasonably active almost up to her last day.

Now I have a 22-year-old male cat with CRF, who is doing amazingly well on Azodyl and Ubiquinol. Are you familiar with the squirt cans of Ubiquinol being sold by Dr. Mercola, whose newsletter I get? I used to cut capsules, but now find it a lot easier just to give a squirt or two from the container and mix it into the food. The container keeps oxygen out and so helps preserve the Ubiquinol. Each "pump" provides 10mg of Ubiquinol, according to the label, and I give one or two "pumps" with each dish of food, which probably works out to 40~50mg per day.

So far, it seems to be working very well. The cat is maintaining his weight of around 6.5 lbs. and apart from some arthritis and senile dementia, he appears to be happy--sitting on my lap while I watch TV and purring, enjoying a daily turn or two around the garden, and eating very well. He even trots a bit at times, and considering his great age, I think that's pretty good.

He often rejects the Azodyl if it is not mixed in with a bit of fishy cat food, but I will see what I can do to minimize his exposure to fish. I also appreciate the information on liver enzymes and the thyroid.

At 22 years and 2 months, every day is a gift. The only sad thing is that, in spite of his dementia, he still remembers and terribly misses the other cat, who was his great friend. He starts up from bed in the middle of the night to call and look for her, showing disappointment when she doesn't come. In the daytime, over and over, he demands access to the closet where they used to sleep together, where he sniffs the bedding and looks up to see if she might be on a higher shelf. I know he is probably seeing her in his mind in all these places, and it is heart-rending to see his grief when she doesn't materialize. In his younger days, he was the most intelligent cat I have ever had, and I'm glad he has retained some of his memory; but it's kind of too bad that senility did not blunt his sense of loss.

Dr. Becker in her last newsletter advises 50 mg per day of ubiquinol just as a preventative. My 17 1/2 year-old doesn't do well with pill, and I don't want to have to add yet another supplement to his food. So I am looking for a liquid form of ubiquinol that I can just squirt into his mouth--somehow the spray seems iffy in terms of dosing. I'm having trouble finding it in liquid form. Does anyone know of a good one in this form?

I just came back here, having gotten a message that someone had "likes" one of my comments. When I wrote the October one, I couldn't remember the new medicine from the vet that I had been giving my old boy (besides the Ubiquinol, which was not from the vet, though of course I kept him informed as to what I was doing). It was Renavast, which the vet said would do pretty much the same thing as the Azodyl and cost a lot less. It may have played a part in the cat's living so long, but judging from the things the vet said, was not expected to extend his life so very long, so I think a lot of credit may be due to the Ubiquinol. That cat's death has been very hard for me to take. He was my last and best.

I worked in Dialysis for 25 years and have never heard of CO Q10 getting any one of Dialysys

I have no medical background, but the place where I first saw something about the efficacy of Ubiquinol was in a report of a Canadian study with human subjects. I have been trying to find it again, but seem not to have kept it in my FireFox bookmarks. However, just now, googling "renal failure and ubiquinol, I have come across some other good references. Here is a link for one of them (though I dislike the name of the site, which seems aimed at selling something): http://www.rejuvenation-science.com/n_coq10-kidney_failure.html 

About halfway down, there is a speculation that Ubiquinol might do well.

As on the site I have given a link to, I remember reading in the Canadian study, that if the kidneys are too far gone, Ubiquinol cannot help. That it could help at all surprised me because many years ago a vet told me that once a kidney cell is damaged, it can't recover.

How recent the discovery may be that Ubiquinol or CoQ10 can help in renal failure, I don't know; but going back to the time I first began trying Ubiquinol, I can estimate that I read about the study in question around 6 years ago. Of course, I can't be sure that it was the Ubiquinol that helped my two cats; Azodyl didn't stop the vomiting in the first one, but the diet proposed by Dr. Becker (whose newsletter comes along with Dr. Mercola's) did. And my second cat, who lived the longest, was on RenAvast (apparently as good as and cheaper than Azodyl), as well as ubiquinol, so that may have helped.

Be that as it may, the vet that took care of my cats for the last 3 or so and last 6 years of their respective lives certainly was mystified that they lasted so many years and many times referred to it as "a miracle."

I can only presume that their kidneys had not yet reached the point of no return where Ubiquinol will not help.

I have become a believer in the use of CoQ10 for CRF cats. I have a 16 year neutered male cat with kidney issues for years. I had used COQ10 sporadically as a topical treatment when his gums got red as he has battled gingivitis his entire life. IT works fine for that. Recently his gums had started to recede on his canines so I started to apply a 30 mg capsule around the base of his canines daily. I did this about a week before his most recent lab work. The results were very positive.His specific gravity increased slightly from 1.013 to 1.014. His BUN went from 51 to 46, his creatinine from 3.3 to 3.0 and his SMDA from 18 to 16. The vet comment she did not usually SDMA drop.

The only negative was that his T4 level dropped from 1.4 to 1.1. He had radioactive iodine treat several years ago and is one of those rare cats who developed hypothyroidism.

In addition to his thyroid medication he is also on calcitriol and receives an acupuncture treatment every 6 weeks. He is the third cat I have had with CRF and all have responded well to acupuncture.

I need to get more COQ10 and as the result of the info on the site I am going to try the Ubiquinol.

I hope he will do well.

I have been using Ubiquinol on my animals for many years. I used to use the liquid but it was just too messy. So what I do now is this. I buy the little gel caps and I poke it with a needle. Then I pull the plunger out of a tiny 1ml syringe that I buy online. I squeeze the whole amount in the syringe and put the plunger back on. I then just squirt it in the inner cheek of my animals and they hardly notice it. I give them roughly 50 to 100 mg daily.

I have a cat that I have been giving it to for about 3 years and he is going on 19. When I first started giving it to him he was getting super thin and was losing his appetite. Now he screams for food. I also do sub-q fluids daily but I know that from years of giving fluids to my animals that fluids alone did not ever bring back their health like using ubiquinol. Last we had blood work about 2 months ago his kidney values were completely normal.

Ubiquinol is very good for the heart too and is needed for all the cells.

I hope your soon-to-be-19-year old has several good years ahead of him. It's great that his kidney values are normal. I am still taking ubiquinol daily, myself and hope it will protect my kidneys.

Hi Friends, I realise this the beloved feline of this person has probably passed away by now, and I wanted to give my sincere condolences, but I did want to share with you this video I made which I think anyone with a cat who has CRF (chronic renal failure) will possibly find immensely helpful and possibly even a lifesaver.

Our beloved Anjushri has had chronic renal failure now since mid 2014. She was literally on death's door at that time. We had even dug a burial site for her and we were arranging for the vet to come to our house because she was so ill. We realised that 150 mls of Hartmanns every other day kept her well hydrated and kept her CRF blood values down very effectively. Due to this treatment we administer at home of 150 mls subcutaneously of Hartmanns IV solution every other day to Anjushri, she is still going strong everyone :) It's only 10 minutes out of one's time every other day and your cat could be as happy as Anjushri is :)

It's Aug 17, 2018. She started these subcutaneous infusions of 150 mls every other day in mid 2014, so that's almost 4 years now she's been going strong. So think about it. Let your vet know about Anjushri and her subcutaneous regime. Her appetite is still very good. She's a grazer and eats probably 10 times a day haha, each time a small amount but she really enjoys her food. She sleeps a reasonable amount because she's an older cat, but she still has an interest in cuddles, going outside and updating herself on all the smells around the place. Loves being in the sun. She's probably lost a little weight since the video, but she's maintaining it reasonably well. It's to be expected as she gets older that she will lose more weight. But generally she's going very well. She was born in 2002, so she's 16 this year.

Anyway, just wanted to give you all some possible hope that this certainly works for Anjushri and maybe this regime will work for your sweet little feline.

Much love from Anjushri, myself and the rest of our feline family. And do think about going vegan, because all sentient animals love life and do not want to die. They're sentient, just like your sweet feline friend. Here's a good vegan resource HowToGoVegan.org Best wishes and great happiness always. xxxxxx

My 8.5 years cat has congestive heart failure. I just found out for this supplement. Is there anyone who can explain to me what is better: coq10 or ubiquinol? What is a dossage? Please, write me some link to buy it online. Sorry on bad English

I'm sorry about your cat. Ubiquinol, to my understanding, is a more-readily absorbed form of CoQ10. It helped my two old cats a lot with their renal failure, prolonging their lives for a number of years, but I don't know what the dosage would be for heart failure.

I gave them one squirt of Dr.Mercola's ubiquinol "pump," in each meal, (so about 2ce a day, if I remember right) and the pump keeps air from the liquid so that it can be kept at room temperature. I think it was devised by Dr. Becker, a holistic vet whose advice (also often very useful) gets posted on the Dr. Mercola newsletter. Here is a link to the product I used. (I hope links are allowed.) https://shop.mercola.com/product/969/1/ubiquinol-liquid-pump-for-pets-263-pumps-1-bottle

It seems to be out of stock just now, but you can ask them to notify you when it comes in, and meanwhile, you could do what I did before this handy pump came on the market--just puncture a capsule of ubiquinol for humans with a needle and mix a drop in your cat's food. I found, however, that my cats didn't like it that way (perhaps it had a scent or flavor), so that I had to "paint" it on their legs to get them to lap it up, and I was very happy with Dr. Becker's (Dr. Mercola's) pump because the cats did not seem to detect the ubiquinol at all. Much easier!

I hope it will help your cat.

I was happy to read about Anjushri, too, and can add my voice to Trisha's to say that sodium lactate IV helps a lot with cats that have renal failure. As he neared the end at 14 years of age, my last cat needed the fluids (in the form of Ringer's solution, which is the same as Hartman's) every day, though he started out with fewer times. It was a bit scary in the beginning, but I soon got the hang of it and was able to give him the infusion without any help. I was also giving him ubiquinol for CRF, and on the day before he died, his urine still had a good color.

Long life to your beloved Anjushri!

Thank you on reply. I sent message to dr. Mercola website. Hope they will reply soon. Maybe I will start with Coq10 as soon as possible if there are not ubiqinol liquids available. All the best.

I would suggest getting gel capsules of ubiquinol, rather than Coq10. Easier for the body to assimilate, so far as I have read. It's too bad they were out of the ubiquinol pump for pets when I checked the URL for you. If forced to be puncturing capsules while waiting for it, you could do as I did, just to avoid wasting the stuff, pop the punctured cap in your mouth and down it for whatever benefit there may be left after a drop has been removed for Anjushri. Do let us know here from time to time how she is doing. I'll be thinking of you.

Has anyone had trouble with the Mercola Pumps? Two years ago every single pump I purchased clogged up halfway through. They were all very swell about return and replace but what a head- ache. I always had to be sure to have one in reserve.

I should see all these a lot sooner. My daughter (cat) MoMo just died couple days ago. I took her to the vet last week because she stopped eating, and the vet told me she has CKD and needed a blood transfusio. I took her to the emergency and saved her life the first time. I then took her back to the vet again, and they gave her subQ fluids. Later on that day, she was breathing heavily. I immediately took her to another emergency, and she died there because of fluids overloaded with congested heart failure. I regret everything I did and wish her to be within God’s love now. I still have a dog and many other cats, which I am giving them Omega 3, CoQ10, and little bit of Optifiber into their food now.

That's so sad. It seems that MoMo's case was complicated by the heart failure, which--if it does similar things to both cats and humans (think swollen ankles)--may have caused more fluids than normal in her body, anyway. At least, so I assume, because the subQ fluids were always rapidly absorbed in the case of my last two cats, who surprised the vet by living 'way beyond what he had expected, thanks to Ubiquinol (a more easily absorbed form of CoQ10) and my giving them gradually more frequent treatments with subQ Ringer's solution. They always absorbed the subQ fluids rather quickly after the fluids had a brief stay in the cat's belly, having run down under the skin and accumulated making something like a little flabby pouch in the loose skin there.

Considering the fact that MoMo had heart failure on top of CKD, she probably had little time left with you no matter what treatment she received, and you did everything you could in your power to save her. Please don't blame yourself, but dwell instead on the happy life she had with you. It is natural to have regrets after a loved one dies, and I, too, have wished in the cases of a few other pets that I had tried some other things, but I have decided that we need to give ourselves peace as we remember them. Surely they would not wish any added pain on their beloved owners. It's good that you still have some pets to love.

I too lost a cat as a result of chronic kidney disease complicated by hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, the treatments for which are diametrically opposed and very hard to balance. I very much empathize. I used to use human ubiquinol for the cats but switched to the pump few months ago and have not had a problem with it so far. I would think Mercola would work with you on a solution to any difficulty with the pump's functionality. I cannot find any other ubiquinol specifically for animals, though.

I am trying to find a best pet insurance deal for my dog n cats now. Will need to have stem cell therapy include. Any suggestions?

I have just taken Figo Pet Insurance a few days ago, so I do not have experience to share. I never used the insurance I took last year. But I did do a lot of research, and I found this one to offer the best price for an awful lot. They were the top pick of Reviews.com. You might want to go there and read about it as well as the other two they think highly of, but Trupanion is the highest I found. You can easily get quotes from all of them; there are 12-13. All that said, if you need stem cell therapy for a condition that one of your animals already has, no one will cover it because it is a pre-existing condition. There are a few, including Figo, that will cover something that the animal may have had and was considered cured of for 6 months or so. Figo and some of the others will cover pretty much any procedure you can think of, even acupuncture, physical therapy, etc., so long as they are administered by a vet. Figo does not cover "experimental" treatments, so you should find out if stem cell therapy is now beyond that category. I have heard it is still not ready for prime time for humans. Also, any of these will require medical records; they just differ in how many of them they want. Figo is 2 years' worth. Hope this helps.

Thanks for sharing. My dog and cats don’t need stem cell therapy now but just a precaution for the future, since MoMo just died 6 days ago. She was at a late stage of kidney disease and if I knew she was that ill, I would have acted a lot faster. It was all my fault. Just checked Figo, they are a little bit more expensive than healthypaws but will drill into the details to see what‘s the difference.

That's the one I had and left. They raised the rate in the second year. They are not very responsive. I put in a small claim one time and never even got a response. When I finally called in, they said that it had been denied. Never told me. Unless they've changed, I think their pre-existing condition rule is absolute, no matter how much time has passed since the animal has been cured. When you check them out, see if that's still true. I'm surprised you think Figo is more expensive because it was the very lowest of all the major ones I looked at, including the raised price at Healthy Paws. And I am not sure that the coverage options are as good. With Figo, I took 90% coverage, unlimited payout, and $250 deductible/year. One of my cats is 2 and other is, well, maybe 8.

I was just rereading the comments here and realized that I made a big mistake in my Dec. 2018 comment. My last cat lived, not to 14, but to 24 years of age. It was a devastating loss to me when he died, but I am grateful that he, of all my cats the most intelligent and devoted to me, was able to live so long. He will have been gone four years this September, and I still miss him terribly.

i have a cat who will be 17 yrs old in a few months too., yes his kidneys have issues but and i started giving him cq-10 because online research shows its helps with their organs and there gums, i buy it in capsules and put it into his food. i have also given him the supplement that website below for years now., they are expensive but i feel they have kept him going. remember people take vitamin and supplements with food the same goes for pets. the food help them digest supplements better.

i cook chicken for my cat or pock chops and add the supplements to his food and i also alternate with trader joe can food. you can google cq-10 for cats and the research will come up.

also when cats have kidneys problems they should have wet food and not dry since they need something easier to digest and that has more water in it.

https://www.cornucopiapetfoods.com/collections/supplements/products/phyto-food-super-food-combination?variant=5156041603

i got the NOW brand 30 mg capsules and i just open capsule and put a little into his food everyday with the other stuff.

hope this helps, i also give my cat some water with a dropper when i see he's not eat and i also add water to his wet food so he gets more water.

all the best to your kitty...

Yes! CoQ10 is good for their heart, liver and kidneys. I had a cat that had liver issues and I gave her 200mg of CoQ10 along with 140mg of sam-e and milk thistle and she completely recovered. The vet called her a miracle cat because she didn't think my cat would survive. She was a really sick cat. She was jaundiced and wasn't eating. I had to syringe feed her. Buy the plain capsules and just dump the powder in the cat's food. I do that to all my cats and they have no problem eating it and there's already fat in the food do you don't need the gel caps with vitamin e, which are a pita to try and squeeze out all the contents anyway. And sam-e is good for the kidneys too. I used the liquid sam-e for my cat by Lumina Health Cell Food. It's a little sour but concentrated. I gave my cat 1ml 3 times a day which works out to 217mg a day.