High Creatinine Levels
Judy
4 years ago
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rob333 (zone 7b)
4 years agoAnnie Deighnaugh
4 years agoRelated Discussions
How does feline CRF progress?
Comments (14)Here's my experience: I had 3 cats, two yellow males and a yellow female, all from the same litter. They showed up here as feral kittens. After feeding them for awhile, we finally tamed them, got vaccinations, spayed and neutered and started keeping them inside. About 5 years ago,when they were about 9, one male got sick. I took him to the vet, he was diagnosed with renal failure. The doctor said we might try giving him fluid and trying to keep him alive, but she didn't sound very hopeful about the outcome, so I had him euthanized. I had bloodwork on the other 2 done then, and they were normal, although the other male was in the high normal range. The vet didn't suggest that I should have him rechecked after some time had passed, so I assumed I didn't need to worry about his kidneys. After about a year and a half passed, the other male lost weight (down to about 8 pounds from about 11) and I suspected he had renal failure too. I took him to the vet, a different doctor saw him, and it was renal failure. He convinced me to do the fluid and see if he would improve. So I did. After about 3 days of force feeding him canned Hills AD, he started eating dry Hills KD and gained weight. His appetite was fine once he started eating. He eventually gained weight to 10 pounds, and maintained it until a few months ago. He started out with fluid every day until his creatinine and bun went down some. Then every other day. Then every third day. Early on, he was anemic, so the doctor started him on EPO injections. That took care of the anemia and he didn't develop the antibodies that some cats develop. After a few months I asked the doctor (this time it was the doctor who had seen the first cat) if I needed to be concerned about his blood pressure, and she said that she was sure his blood pressure was fine. (They couldn't check it anyway, no Doppler machine.) One evening about a week later I realized he was blind. I took him to the emergency clinic in Charlotte, NC and his blood pressure was so high it wasn't readable. They kept him overnight, got his bp down, and sent him home with a prescription for Norvasc and told me to give him Pepcid daily, as well. That took care of that problem. While at the emergency place, which is also a specialty veterinary clinic, he was transferred to internal medicine, and was fortunate to get an excellent doctor who told me his specialty is nephrology. I started taking him there for his regular bloodwork and checkups, even though it was more expensive. There's no doubt in my mind that taking him to the specialist made a big difference in how well he did for so long. As time passed, and his creatinine started rising as his remaining kidney got worse, I increased the fluid to 200 ml. once a day. His creatinine never did go down near normal. It was always over 5, and even when it was around 8 his appetite was good and he seemed to feel fine. That's how I gauged how he felt, by how he was eating and how he acted. About 6 weeks ago his creatinine had gone up from 6.6 to 10. I could tell he was not feeling as well, and he wasn't eating as much. I increased his EPO injections to once a week, from every other week. Dr. Jaeger said EPO seems to help lower the creatinine in some cats. When I took him back about 10 days ago his creatinine had only gone down to 9.6 from 10.1. His blood pressure was a little high, too. He wasn't eating much at all, so I got Cyproheptadine (appetite stimulant). That was on Friday, July 6. He was scheduled for another appointment on July 26. When I brought him home that Friday, I persuaded him to eat a little canned Hills AD twice that evening. Saturday he ate a little more of it. Sunday he wouldn't eat it, so I tried no salt added canned tuna. He ate just a few bites. He also was not drinking much at that point. I was still giving him 200 ml fluid daily, and his medications. Monday he wouldn't eat at all and had not drank more than a couple tablespoons of water. Thinking it might take a while for the appetite stimulant to work, I put off calling the vet. Monday night I opened his mouth like I would to give him a pill and popped a little tuna in. He swallowed it but wasn't interested in eating at all. Tuesday I called the specialist and he said to bring him in. We had discussed at the previous appointment that he was near the end, and the doctor and I agreed that I wouldn't force feed him since he wasn't going to get any better, but the doctor thought he'd be ok for another 3 weeks or so. Our objective was to keep him comfortable if possible. By Monday night I had already made up my mind that it was time to end it before he got in worse shape. I had also realized Monday that he wasn't urinating as much as he should have been for the past couple days, so his remaining kidney function wasn't enough to produce much urine. I weighed him and it looked like he had gained about a pound, but I know it was fluid because he hadn't eaten enough to put on any weight. So when I took him to the doctor Tuesday morning he examined him and said that there was nothing we could do to help him at this point. So I had him euthanized. I hated to do it but I know it was the right thing to do. I feel better about it knowing that he only seemed to feel really really bad for a couple days at the most. Monday night, before I took him to the doctor Tuesday, he jumped up on the bed and I petted him for a good while. He purred while I petted him, even though he hadn't purred for at least a month. Now, here's what happened with his sister. She had some spells of vomiting, starting 6 months ago. The regular vet couldn't find anything wrong with her. Her bloodwork was fine, although her calcium was a little high. After a couple days she'd be fine, and start eating again. She had gradually lost some weight, but he attributed it to her getting older (she was obese at 15 pounds for a long time, and even when she got down to 10 pounds she looked chubby, because she was a small cat). After one of the vomiting spells, I took her to the emergency clinic at night because I thought she might be dehydrated. They did bloodwork and it was fine, but the specific gravity of her urine was not quite normal, and could possibly be an indicator of early renal disease. They didn't suggest she needed to be transferred to internal medicine, so I didn't worry about it. That was in April, I think. She seemed fine for a while. Then about 6 or 7 weeks ago, she was sick again so I took her to the regular vet, mostly because I thought she might need fluid and I couldn't tell if she was dehydrated, so I didn't want to do fluid at home if she didn't need it. They did bloodwork and her creatinine and bun levels showed renal failure. Other than the urinalysis being somewhat abnormal earlier, we had no clue that it would be renal failure. I don't remember how high it was, but she needed IV fluid at least overnight, so the new young female vet at the regular vet's office said that if it was her cat she'd take her to the specialty vet, and since he was already seeing my male, I knew he'd see the female too. They took her as an emergency patient, hospitalized her, and kept her for about 4 days. He said her kidneys were worse than the male's. Her creatinine didn't go down much, but I brought her home and started the same routine with her, fluid, blood pressure meds, pepcid. She seemed to do a little better, and started to eat, so I took her for her followup appointment around the first of June. Her creatinine wasn't going down much, but we didn't think she was in any danger of getting worse quickly and her appetite had improved. That afternoon when I brought her home from the appointment she went to the bowl and ate some food. I thought she was ok, but from then on, she went downhill fast. I had an appointment for her about a week later on Tuesday, June 12, but she got so sick I took her to the emergency clinic the following Saturday night instead of waiting til Tuesday. She wouldn't eat, I was forcefeeding her canned Hills AD. She hated getting the pills but got too weak to object much. She couldn't even walk to the litter box. I had to carry her. They called Sunday morning to say she had perked up some, but wasn't ready to go home. So I thought she might be ok. Then Sunday night the emergency doctor called and said she wasn't doing well at all. She wasn't producing urine and had fluid in her chest and abdominal cavities. That doctor had called the specialist (who had not been able to see her that time because of an out of town conference, but had just got back into town), and he agreed that there was nothing they could do for her, so I had her euthanized. It was harder with her, because with the male, I had about 3 years to know it was going to happen eventually. She had seemed ok (except for the occasional vomiting spells) up until a few months ago. The specialist said that the male had done much better than he would have predicted when he first saw him with the high blood pressure, and the female went down much quicker than he expected, although he knew her kidneys were worse than the males. The male was diagnosed in September of 2004, I think, and he lasted until this past Tuesday, July 10. The female was diagnosed this past May 21, and I lost her on June 10. Exactly a month apart. One thing the specialist said early on was that you never can predict how long the cat will live or how they'll respond to treatment. He didn't think my male would live much longer from when he first saw him in Dec. 2004, and he's had a lot of renal failure patients....See MoreHigh BUN, Creatinine, & Calcium
Comments (8)Hi Dave, timber's parathyroid surgery cost $1456. There was also a couple hundred dollars in follow up tests to make sure his calcium did not fall too low after surgery (that is a critical thing to watch for). The malignancy panel Laurie is talking about is the pth and pth-rp that I mentioned. I highly recommend it. I would call around and get estimates for the surgery-the estimate your vet gave is a lot higher than my dogs surgery. At the same time, it is critical to find a surgeon experienced at this because this is not a procedure vets see on a routine basis. Try a veterinary school clinic. Please google parathyroid.com. It is a website for probably the most experienced parathyroid expert in the world for humans. He did my parathyroid surgery in 2011! He believes that the kidney damage caused by hyperparathyroidism can be reversible in many cases. I trust his judgment over a vet who does not see this regularly. Also, if your vet said that if kodak had one or the other problem, it might be manageable, right? So if you correct the parathyroid problem, maybe the kidney issues can be dealt with, even if the damage is not reversible. Good luck with kodak. It's hard to know the right thing to do, especially when expensive tests etc. are involved. Karen...See MoreMy cat has a very high CK level
Comments (7)Elevated CK is usually an indicator of muscle damage or wasting. Your observation of muscle loss is consistent with an elevated CK. Has your cat's appetite been normal? If he is losing weight despite good appetite, that is usually a sign of a serious underlying disease. BTW, the highest CK level I have personally seen was about 2.5 million. It was a cat with pancytopenia (decreased red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets). She did fine, although the cause of her pancytopenia was never found, and it was her 4th occurance. Weird case. Anyway, one wouldn't try to treat an elevated CK level. You try to find out what is causing the muscle wasting, and treat that. The thyroid levels are not really all that high. Up to 4.0 is normal. I would not at this point blame the muscle wasting on being hyperthyroid. The thyroid level naturally fluctuates throughout the day; it is most likely that the second sample was simply taken at a peak. What radiographs were taken (abdominal, thoracic)? What was the reason for the EKG? Lymphopenia (decreased lymphocyte count) is not a specific finding. Many sick and stressed animals have lymphopenia due to increased cortisol. Some other causes of lymphopenia is cats are FeLV and FIV infection. It is not very useful looking at just the lymphocyte count from a CBC. The entire CBC must be evaluated to obtain any meaning. Platelet count, if it is real, is concerning. 170,000 is not really normal for a cat anyway, slightly on the low side (200-450k is normal). 40,000 is quite low, but not yet low enough to cause spontaneous bleeding (25,000 is considered the level at which you might spontaneously bleed). But there are labratory methods and errors that can seriously underestimate the platelet count, especially in cats. Platelet clumping is very common in cats, and depending on lab methods and if nobody looked at a direct blood smear, could falsely lower the automated platelet count. Was a platelet estimate also done? If that was adequate, then it was a lab error/clumping issue. If the platelet estimate is also low, then your cat needs to be further evaluated for thrombocytopenia. Without seeing the rest of the labwork, it is really hard to get an idea of what is going on. We never look at just the abnormal values- the CBC and chemistry only are useful when taken as a whole, and in light of knowing the patient's history and physical exam. Sure, it's fun to speculate, but the person most qualified to answer your questions about your cat's bloodwork is your vet....See MoreUnfnished Compost = High pH & Potash levels?
Comments (8)Possible they are using manure as an ingredient in the compost and the farmer used lime to keep down odors in the barn. Not an uncommon practice. For the OP: 8.3 is calcium carbonate (limestone found in the typical bag of lawn and garden lime). Possibly what you have there. I would expect some movement toward neutral as it finishes, but who knows how long it would take. You can keep checking if you have a pH meter and if it stays high and seems to be affecting plants, use slightly acidified water when watering. 7.8 is not that high though, I'm not sure I'd mess with it unless you're trying to grow azaleas or blueberries. The high K may be from the compost but also could be coming from the fertilizer you used, depending on what it is. My garden soil has high soluble K but it doesn't seem to hurt anything. And it will leach away over time in your containers. This post was edited by toxcrusadr on Tue, Jan 6, 15 at 11:28...See MoreOutsidePlaying
4 years agoJudy
4 years agorob333 (zone 7b)
4 years agoElmer J Fudd
4 years agoJudy
4 years agoMDLN
4 years agoAnnie Deighnaugh
4 years agoElmer J Fudd
4 years agojemdandy
4 years agoMDLN
4 years ago
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