Dr. Doug Kidney And Liver Values?

[Guest SusanP]

My Dr. Doug is 9 1/2, and he has been asking to go outside more often, especially at night. He had senior bloodwork done today and both his kidney and liver values were a bit elevated. The vet recommends more water and possibly trying a kidney diet (can anyone recommend a good and or affordable one?) and then rechecking the values in a month. If they are still elevated, they want to do an abdominal ultrasound (which she didn't say would be to check for cancer, and I sort of didn't think to ask, but is it?)

 

She said some liver problems can affect the kidneys.

 

I'm getting scared.

 

Any thoughts/experiences with this kind of thing?

[Burpdog]

Did you do a urine culture?

 

What were the values?

[Guest Energy11]

Regarding a good kidney diet, NONE are affordable :-(

 

I use Purina NF. Goldie likes that, or Royal Canin Renal MP (both kibble), but they do come canned. She HATES Science Diet KD, as do most dogs.

 

Being on the kidney diet might help get her values back in check. Right now, I wouldn't worry about cancer. Just see how she does and go from there! Good luck, hugs and prayers from us.

[CaliforniaGreys]

Dee is so right, none of the commercial kidney diets are inexpensive.

Not to question your vet, but some are a bit too quick to put them on a kidney diet.

I would ask for the numbers

[Guest SusanP]

Ulp-- I think she may have rattled off some numbers, but there was too much to take in all at once. She did say the BUN was quite elevated in addition to the creatinine. I think I'm even more worried about the liver values--she said there were two elevations in liver values, and the suggestion that a liver problem could be causing kidney values to go up sounded ominous.

 

If a kidney diet might be premature (He has a history of loose stools with most foods and I will have to change our usual free-feeding regimen around here or all 4 will be getting the kidney food. He eats Diamond Senior now, with minimum 25% crude protein, which she thought might be moderate--didn't even sound sure. (We've ended up at a clinic with a lot of vets, not sure how new this one is) what steps would those of you with experience in this take first, second and third?

 

Does giving more water make sense?

 

I really need to ask for those numbers, don't I?

[krissn333]

Dee is so right, none of the commercial kidney diets are inexpensive.

Not to question your vet, but some are a bit too quick to put them on a kidney diet.

I would ask for the numbers

 

They really do, and they'll try to push the k/d on you, which I personally feel is nothing but filler and junk.

 

Get his numbers. Some dogs don't need a lighter protein diet, some do. My understanding is that unless he's in renal FAILURE, you shouldn't cut protein out of a dog's diet. If anything, you should up it. Send Amy an email (I'll PM you her email address). She's had a few kidney dogs and has some really good advice and can point you toward some really good articles too.

 

Honestly, home cooking for him is probably the best thing for the money. You can find a ton of home cooked kidney diets by googling. No kidney diet is cheap, but, a bag of Hills k/d will run you about $70. You can home cook stuff that's MUCH better quality and nourishing for that much if not less.

[Guest SusanP]

you know, he did have a urinanalysis, and she did say he had some protein in his urine, but she was not inclined to treat for a mild UTI in light of the kidney values being up. Does that make any sense?

 

Kristin, it was Hills KD they wanted to try, but she said "maybe", and she didn't even seem sure whether his Diamond senior kibble is low protein or not.

 

And I wondered about high or low protein because of some older posts I looked at on here...

 

I'm pretty confused, and I'm not always sure about this vet clinic.

Edited October 14, 2009 by SusanP

[Batmom]

you know, he did have a urinanalysis, and she did say he had some protein in his urine, but she was not inclined to treat for a mild UTI in light of the kidney values being up. Does that make any sense?

 

No. Depending on just how high those numbers are, a UTI could be 99% of his problem.

[CaliforniaGreys]

I've had 3 Greys with kidney disease, and all were on the KD and did very well. But again, " bit elevated" raises a flag for me.

 

If it were me, I would want to know the Creat/BUN and would decided from there. With kidney issues, it's not just the protein you want to cut down on, it's the phosphorus.

This is obviously just my opinion, but 25% is too high.

 

As for the liver values being a "bit elevated" I would rely on my vet to advise me. Misty's liver values were elevated due to Cushings and we put her on a human drug to address it. She also had kidney disease and was on the KD.

 

Hopefully you are dealing with a vet who knows Greyhounds and not just the disease.

[Guest SusanP]

She didn't give me a number for protein in the urine, but she said it was "slight". I'll see if I can get all the numbers tomorrow. I am considering going out of town for a second opinon on all this.

 

 

[EllenEveBaz]

DogAware kidney diet site is a good place to start research. The author includes different food comparisons (home cooked and prescription) and lots of reference links to original articles.

I found it very helpful during the 3 years of managing one of my grey's kidney problems.

[Guest mcsheltie]

Innova Senior has worked for us with kidney problems. It is lower in phosphorous and the protein is high quality.

[krissn333]

Susan, if you plan to go out of town and you're going to head our way, I can't recommend Dr. Berger at Walcott Family Pet Clinic enough. He's Sutra's doctor and I've taken my kitty Rose there too because I suspected something was wrong with her. I took her to Dr. Mulch and he poked and prodded her and said, "I'm sure she's fine" Being the mama that I am, I took her to Dr. Berger because I just KNEW something was off with her. Turns out she is hyperthyroid!

 

Dr. Berger is very thorough, however, he'd push the k/d food too. That's the only thing I dislike about most vets. A dog should have a good amount of protein in their food, unless they are in complete renal failure. Even dogs with kidney disease should have protein, I know that most older research says that the protein should be lowered, but, like someone else said, it's the phosphorus that's the real problem.

 

The nice thing about Dr. Berger though is that if you have alternate thoughts, he will hear you out. He was skeptical of my plan to feed Sutra what he termed "table food" (even though this was just healthy, low fat human grade food, not table scraps from my dinners!), but after seeing the results and that Sutra is healthy again, I think he's understood that prescription diets are not always the best route.

 

I've got to speak up again for homecooked meals for sure. You can cook on a weekend and freeze/refrigerate stuff too so you're not cooking every day.

 

However, as Jey said, a UTI could definitely put all of those values at "a little off" anyway. Could be that that's all you're dealing with and you won't have to change his food at all!

[MaryJane]

If there is protein in the urine and his kidney values are elevated, then you probably need to get your pup on a better quality protein but less of it and one lower in phosphorus (at least temporarily). It would help if you had the actual kidney test values...

 

If there is a UTI, there could be a potential that this is a related problem to the kidney issue and one may have caused/aggravated the other and with that in mind, if it was me I would want to investigate and treat the UTI as well as moving to a better food. You may want to check out homemade kidney diets because you can control the ingredients that go into it and also adjust protein and phosphorus levels accordingly.

 

You haven't mentioned what liver tests were elevated (values would also help).

 

 

[Guest SusanP]

The kibble he normally eats has between 7% and 9% phosphorous. Is that high?

 

 

[CaliforniaGreys]

The kibble he normally eats has between 7% and 9% phosphorous. Is that high?

 

The food I was feeding Misty is .08% phosphorus

[Guest mcsheltie]

The kibble he normally eats has between 7% and 9% phosphorous. Is that high?

 

That is very high. I switched several dogs with higher kidney values over the years from Evo because the phosphorus was high. It is 1.57% I look for a product under 1% for normal maintenance feeding. Innova Senior, which I mentioned earlier, is .65% This food has worked well for us with kidney issues.

 

 

[Guest SusanP]

OK, here is what I learned: The creatinine was greater than 40, top end of I think 26 she said? She is less worried about the BUN, 21, top end of 20. (All Greek to me). She feels that the creatinine is so high that a mild UTI wouldn't account for it, and that antibiotic tx could be hard on a dog with kidney problems. So the plan now is for him to go Fri for a urine protein ration test and a second blood test (as we were not sure he was fasting and they had trouble running the test--in fact the liver issues were more issues of unreadable values than anything).

 

Would just going ahead and getting an ultrasound right off tell us "everything"?

 

The kibble I feed, Dimaond senior, has a phosphorous % of .7-.9. Crude protein is 25% min. I'm seeing conflicting info about the need for high or low protein in a kidney diet, but the vet says it should be low. I saw one online analysis of the kibble that said phosphorus mg per 1000k is 140 and % protein DMB is 18.4. I suspect KD is lower, but this is not one of the higher non-kidney kibbles, correct?

 

I'm reluctant to mess with his diet before we have to, so hopefully these tests Fri will shed more light on the situation.

 

They can also do urine testing through the abdomen to determine if it's an infection or not, but until we have to, I'd rather not, as this dog will freak if we put him on his back. I know the test is not bothersome to many dogs, as one of my other hounds had it. On the other hand, the results we got from doing it with that dog were inconculsive, too, as I recall.

 

This is all still very confusing to me, but I guess I'll be getting a crash course in kidneys in the coming weeks.

[Burpdog]

Creatine is usually measured as #.#

 

This is a one time reading. I do another test. I question a 4.0 creatine on a 21 BUN

 

I'd also treat with an antibiotic if I was concerned. How are his teeth?

[CaliforniaGreys]

That Creat can't be right.

And just a note about protein and dogs with kidney disease. It's like everything else, there are more than one schools of thought.

 

Some people feel that protein is ok if it's quality protein. I am old school on this as is my vet. My opinion is lower the protein as well as the phosphorus.

 

25% protein is too high for a dog with kidney issues, if in fact there is a kidney issue

[Guest SusanP]

He has had problems with gum disease all his life, despite regular brushing and dentals. His teeth *look* clean, but his gums are still red and swollen and bleed easily. I know that can lead to health problems, but the vets have never been able to offer anything more to control it.

 

The vet said that antibiotics are not a good idea in a dog with kidney issues when I asked if there would be any value in treating for a possible UTI.

 

Well, we are doing more testing Friday.

[CaliforniaGreys]

 

The

vet said that antibiotics are not a good idea in a dog with kidney issues when I asked if there would be any value in treating for a possible UTI

 

All due respect to your vet, that is not true!

 

I know how confusing this all is, I really do having been through it several times, but if a vet had said that to me, I would be looking for a new vet.

Here, you will get opinions, none of us are vets, but we can help through our experiences. And opinions can conflict.

 

I don't know how to put a link here, but you may want to read what Dr Stack has written about Greys, what is normal for them and what is not.

She's very easy to understand.

[brandimom]

One of my bridge babies was on a home cooked Kidney diet and I still have the receipes at home. PM me if you want me to send them to you.

[Burpdog]

I think you need a second opinion.

[Guest SusanP]

OK--If the vet is not sure if a UTI is present or not, and if the creatinine is higher than a UTI would be expected to make it go, would treating for a UTI with an antibiotic be the first course of action most vets would suggest or not?

 

I think ultimately we will get a second opinion from our old vet, who is now rather far away. But in the short term, does looking at urine protein ratio and redoing the bloodwork make sense? (Well, I know redoing the bloodwork makes sense, but what about the other?)

Edited October 14, 2009 by SusanP