Dog Kidney Failure Please help!!

[KAZ]

My Precious Boy was diagnosed with Kidney failure about a month ago. He seems to be managing ok at the moment. He is putting on weight, fairly active and eating reasonably well. He is on Fortekor, amlodipine and asprin and he has Royal Canin Renal prescription diet.

My concern however is that My Husband and I took him for more blood tests today and his Creatinine was 317. although his other levels (Albumin, Phosporus, Urea etc) seem to have stablilised the Creatinine has been increasing steadily for the last few weeks and we are worried. What should we expect? How high do these levels need to get before the Dog becomes really unwell? Is there anything at all that may help?

We would greatly appreciate any advice from anyone who has/is going through this


Please help......................................................

[lilacben]

Kaz I am sorry I cannot answer your question but would just like you to know I am thinking about you and your poorly boy. I do hope he improves quickly. love B X

[Noweia]

Urea and creatinine are the two biological parameters used to indicate the extent of kidney damage. Urea changes quicker than creatinine so urea levels generally represent how the kidneys are now. Creatinine levels take longer to respond so generally show more chronic damage.

The parameters are no indication of how well or ill the dog is - you say yourself that he is putting on weight and eating reasonably well. The elevated creatinine shows that there is kidney damage there, which you knew already. It may likely continue to slowly rise as the condition progresses.
The urea isn't high because your dog is currently able to cope with the damage, through the combination of drugs and the renal diet.

There is no way of prediciting how ill your dog will be at which urea/creatinine level. The levels are good for monitoring individual cases and how they progress, but as the normal ranges can vary enormously between dogs you can't really make a judgement based on them alone. As you know, very high is bad! But that's really as far as we take it.

Continue as you're doing with the diet and the medication, and ensure he has access to plenty of water and you'll be giving him the best chance. If you have any doubts like this, you can phone your vet and ask them to clarify things or explain them again. If you talk to the vet who saw your pup he'll be able to give you a better assessment than I can.

Hope this helps!

[lankeela]

Interesting, I will bookmark that for future reference. Thanks Noweia.

[KAZ]

Thank you for these responses,
I have found some info on-line today regarding giving your Dog Probiotics or Live yogurt as a supplement to help reduce Creatinine and Urea levels. Does anyone have any experience or advice on this?