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Old April 29th, 2013, 12:49 PM
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dbg10 dbg10 is offline
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Join Date: May 2008
Location: Ajax, Ontario
Posts: 496
Thanks so much for your help growler. That is exactly what I thought about his BUN and Creatinine because after reading your thread about Duffy, her blood work certainly changed quite radically compared to Sam's over a similar period of time, while you were treating her with raw and homeopathic remedies. You did a fabulous job with her BTW and it almost makes me want to find a good homeopathic vet but doubt if I have the $$ to do it.

About the fur pulling, it seemed to start after I started changing foods. Years ago before I joined any forums, all of my cats were on Iams kibble with fancy feast canned. Then Sam developed crystals and I had a heck of a time trying to get him onto RC SO as he hated the stuff. After a crisis when his bladder was blocked he finally accepted the RC SO kibble but not the canned.
He was on that for about 2 years trying to reduce crystal formation and get his urine clear of blood.

Then Smokey lost almost 3lb of weight about 4 years ago and I had also joined the forum by then so I had learned a lot about nutrition for cats. So I started introducing newer much higher quality foods to get Smokey to stop vomiting. I have struggled to find at least one or two foods that were high quality and all of them were able to eat.

By that time (2011) Sam had been diagnosed with CRF and I had to take him off the SO and we tried the low protein canned. He would have nothing whatsoever to do with the kibble and as I said above the canned wasn't much better.

I think it was about a year ago when I really noticed he had an obsession with pulling the fur out of his belly. (years ago in the early 2000s after his brother died, he started pulling all the fur out of the top of his front paws and that lasted for 2 years and stopped on it's own)

I assumed this time it was related to food because that was the only major change other than Raggs passing away which they all reacted to. I find if I rub his belly gently he stops pulling the fur out. He seems to only do it immediately after eating though I don't watch him all the time but that is definitely the time when it's the worst. It made me think that when he eats he is getting cramps in his tummy but no proof of that.

I also noticed late last fall that he was constipated and added coconut oil to his diet which has cured that problem. What I learned through elmination diet was that he seemed more likely to pull the fur out after he'd been fed canned chicken cat food. So I started him on beef and salmon excluding chicken but it didn't seem to consistently stop his fur pulling. In the last few weeks I've been switching him to Wellness and NV Instinct, but he is not impressed with either of them. I am still playing with the foods to find a couple he will eat that are good for his CRF and he will eat consistently. I am thinking I may have to try raw but know that feeding all of them raw will be very expensive unless I make it myself.

I still am waiting for them to get back to me about the Azodyl coming in (in fact it isn't azodyl, it's another drug that the vet said is exactly the same but in powder form so I can add it to his food rather than give him a pill). Also the special litter for his urine specimen and I plan to pick up a copy of ALL of his blood work including a T4 that was done. I am looking forward to that so that then I can really find out how bad his kidney function actually is and if there are any other borderline abnormalities that she didnt tell me about. It was like pulling teeth trying to get his blood work, if I didn't ask for the results of each specific test, then she didn't tell me what it was.

I love what you said I should say to her... that is prefect for getting her off her kibble fascination. I was so surprised they had absolutely no canned food on display, yet had every possible variant of the different prescription kibbles.

BD Thanks I probably will start by asking her why he shouldn't have canned food and then tell her what growler suggested. That will probably eliminate any discussion on diet.
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Willing Slave to: Sam 17 yrs; Bailey 14 yrs; and Smokey 10 yrs.
R.I.P. Raggs 1997-2012 ; Pepper 1997-2009 ; Tiger 2000 - 2014;
"Please do not breed or buy while shelter pets are left to die"
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