We did get Cy's blood test results:

[mistressofmuses]

His liver function is good, so he gets to stay on his pain meds!

His thyroid is a little low, but barely outside of normal range.

His kidney function is not as good. It's not dangerous, but his creatine is elevated. It's around a 2.5 when it should be down in the .5 to around 1 range. According to the vet, 10+ is when you're approaching kidney failure territory.

Monday or Tuesday we'll stop back by the vet to get some samples of kidney diet food, and see if we can find one that he likes. The vet said she also has a home-feeding recipe for a kidney-friendly diet, so I'll get that, too. (We haven't ever found a commercial dog food that the dogs do very well on, so we do make their food. Though if Cy likes any of the foods we get samples of, that may be what we go with for him.) Fortunately, it is something we can try to adjust his diet to help with.

I am not terribly surprised about him having kidney issues. The mystery illness he had many years ago absolutely had kidney involvement along with everything else, and we suspected at the time that there would be lasting damage. We avoided any high-protein foods, but it's likely that we now need to actually start aiming for low-protein for him.

Comments

Good to hear there is a plan

[disgruntledgirl]

I hope you share this diet. I'm just curious at this point.

Re: Good to hear there is a plan

[mistressofmuses]

I will see what she recommends, and will share it!

[spikedluv]

Yay for liver function, boo for kidney.

Ti is on special kidney food and, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but, it is frelling expensive. If you can manage the homemade kind it might be better. And if you could share the recipe I'd appreciate it. I may have seen it once and decided it was too involved for me to bother with. o_O

[mistressofmuses]

Yeah, I'm really glad about the liver function, because I didn't want to have to take his pain management away.

Not so thrilled about the kidney stuff, but I'm glad it is something that we can hopefully manage with diet. But yes, unfortunately I know kidney formulated food is extremely pricey! I recall having to price it for my mom's old dog, Raven, and I've had friends who had to feed kidney diets to older animals, too. Sobcry.

I will definitely see if we can do the home recipe. I think that might have been what my mom ended up doing for Raven, but I don't remember the specifics. (I think the vet said it's mostly proportional; just making sure you have the right balance of carb to fat to protein, but I'll see what she says when we go in.) Unfortunately, Cy has decided he is boycotting rice, so that may limit our options, too.

[spikedluv]

Our dogs are not fans of rice, either, though sometimes I put some in their bowls to see if I can get it past them. *g*

[mistressofmuses]

Cy used to be fine with rice, but in the last maybe... three weeks or so, he just decided that he doesn't want it, and he wouldn't eat his food at all if there was rice in it. Unfortunately it is the bulk of the kidney diet recipe, so either we'll have to find a substitute for it, or he'll have to get over it, ha.

Luckily Bella loves rice, but she loves anything that fits in her mouth!

[umadoshi]

Poor pup!kidneys. I hope you find a diet he likes that helps him! *hugs*

[mistressofmuses]

I hope we find a good diet for him, too! We'll see what he thinks of his options. *hugs*

[scarlipswolfwife]

Suggestions on the diet foods. IF there is one that the vets give you a sample of that Cy likes, and if it's Hill's, there is a thing called Hill's to Home that you can sign up for. It's supposed to save you some money on a very expensive food. Vets charge more because they have a more limited supply and the vendors charge vets extra to have those supplies, but where there's more (like from Hill's itself), they supposedly don't charge AS much if you get them online, and the Hill's to Home program apparently has some perks. There's a similar program to the Purina Pro Plan diet foods - a way to order them online where they'll be cheaper and lower or free shipping.

[mistressofmuses]

That's good advice, thank you! I'll see about the direct purchases, if that ends up being the route we go. I know that basically any of the specialty diets like this are pricey.

[scarlipswolfwife]

Holy crap are they pricey. I knew they were from the times vets tried to keep me getting diet foods for Taillte and Katie and when Kathy was getting the diet canned foods for Cissye before she passed. But working at a vet clinic, I see it all. I mean, when you get meds or diet foods from a vet, it's not the vet trying to gouge you of all your money - as much as I used to think it was - it's that the *vendors* are gouging the vets out of money and vets have to make money to afford medications and equipment, etc etc, and to pay employees and themselves (same with the medications - they have some on site for convenience, but they are always going to be cheaper through a regular pharmacy or Chewy or whatever). It sucks, but then you have Chewy and Vetsource and Bandana and other sites that'll charge less because they're corporations that can afford large quantities of medications and diet foods so they can afford to have lower prices. They aren't as convenient because you have to wait for them to be delivered, but *juggles cost + convenience*

[mistressofmuses]

Ugh, SO expensive. I knew they would be, but pricing them today... ouch. It's like, $15/day to feed him as recommended, and I just can't make that happen. I don't have an extra $450 a month.

I do know it's not the vet offices trying to price gouge. I have some vet tech friends who've talked about it a lot, too.
I think that some of the chain vets (VCA is the main one, though there are other companies popping up in our area) DO overcharge for some of what they do, but that's because I see how much more they charge for some things than other vets do. (And more than overcharging, I think sometimes they just push for you to get more expensive things done... at our free wellness visit there after we adopted her, they insisted that Bella needed a bunch of very expensive surgeries, when it turned out that almost all of her issues were fixed by changing her diet to one that she wasn't allergic to.)

But yes, it sucks because it's expensive everywhere! And I know that when vet offices are the ones directly interacting with the pet owners, they're the ones who get the bulk of the blame for the expense, whether that's food/meds/cost of care.

[olivermoss]

Glad he can stay on his meds and you know what's up with him. The sooner kidney stuff is caught and dealt with via diet the better. Cats are different, but Triskele had kidney stuff and was on Subq fluids for it it which really helped.

That's great that you make their food and can adjust things.

[mistressofmuses]

Me too!

I'm hopeful that the diet will do good for him, and am encouraged that he seems to like the various diet options that we've got. (I was worried that he'd extend his recent pickiness to the kidney-safe options, and we'd struggle, but so far he's liked all the commercial and the home options.)