Diet Dilemma......pancreatitus And Kidney Diet....

[Trishm]

My 11 year old greyhound is at the Vets having had some dental work done, and the pre-op bloods showed that her kidneys are not good, I will get the full results when I pick her up.

My dilemma is that she must have a low fat diet because she has had an attack of pancreatitus in the past and now she needs a low protein diet for her kidneys.

I will talk further with my Vet, who at the moment has one of her nurses contacting the food companies, but I am wondering if anyone has had experience with this problem and how you tackled the diet.

My guess is rice and lots of veggies, I would prefer to do a home cooked diet, I don't think any of the prescription foods are both low fat and low protein.

If anyone can help I would appreciate it. I am devastated, she seems so fit and well, I had no indication of this problem.

Trish

[k9katz]

My 11 year old greyhound is at the Vets having had some dental work done, and the pre-op bloods showed that her kidneys are not good, I will get the full results when I pick her up.

My dilemma is that she must have a low fat diet because she has had an attack of pancreatitus in the past and now she needs a low protein diet for her kidneys.

I will talk further with my Vet, who at the moment has one of her nurses contacting the food companies, but I am wondering if anyone has had experience with this problem and how you tackled the diet.

My guess is rice and lots of veggies, I would prefer to do a home cooked diet, I don't think any of the prescription foods are both low fat and low protein.

If anyone can help I would appreciate it. I am devastated, she seems so fit and well, I had no indication of this problem.

Trish

Hi Trish,

Artemis weight management is 6% fat and 20% protein which is 1 of the lowest available.

[anniek]

My 11 year old greyhound is at the Vets having had some dental work done, and the pre-op bloods showed that her kidneys are not good, I will get the full results when I pick her up.

If anyone can help I would appreciate it. I am devastated, she seems so fit and well, I had no indication of this problem.

Trish

Not good for a dog - or not good for a greyhound?

Does your vet understand there may be a difference in what is "normal"?

[Trishm]

My 11 year old greyhound is at the Vets having had some dental work done, and the pre-op bloods showed that her kidneys are not good, I will get the full results when I pick her up.

If anyone can help I would appreciate it. I am devastated, she seems so fit and well, I had no indication of this problem.

Trish

Not good for a dog - or not good for a greyhound?

Does your vet understand there may be a difference in what is "normal"?

She works in with GAP, so I would imagine that she would know the difference. Do you have any 'normal' (for greyhound)numbers for creatinine levels so that I can compare. I will get more information about the readings when I pick her up.

[anniek]

She works in with GAP, so I would imagine that she would know the difference. Do you have any 'normal' (for greyhound)numbers for creatinine levels so that I can compare. I will get more information about the readings when I pick her up.

There's some very good info

here

and

here

and

here

[rubiton]

Trishm - our dog has been kept on low fat where possible due to a gastro attack two years ago (and trying to get her right after another one at the moment). In the last few weeks since her dental have been trying to change her over onto kidney dry food but cant use it at the moment due to having to be on ID til her insides work properly again (and Im late with the heartworm tablet as it was due the night she got sick with gastro).

We also got the slightly high levels from the pre dental blood tests and the plan is for her to be on the kidney food (eventually as its 16% fat compared to the ID of 9 %) and she is also on daily tablets. Apart from the blood test there are no other real symptoms BUT having seen the afghan suffer back in the 80s when there was no treatment for kidney disease in dogs I an see why the vet wants to be proactive before problems arise.

The kd food is 12 % protein compared to the ID of 22%.

Edited August 13, 2010 by rubiton

[Rappie]

Off the top of my head, Hills w/d is an appropriate food. I recently dealt with a case where a pet was diagnosed with 'kidney' disease elsewhere (it does not have kidney disease), and put on k/d, then subsequently developed pancreatitis due the high fat content - I think either w/d or z/d were the foods recommended by the Hills technical team for concurrent diseases.

With kidney disease, the dietary protein must be of high quality more and in moderate quantities, rather than needing to be severely restricted. Certainly don't want too much protein, but it is equally important that they aren't restricted to eating a small amount of poor quality protein.

[Trishm]

She works in with GAP, so I would imagine that she would know the difference. Do you have any 'normal' (for greyhound)numbers for creatinine levels so that I can compare. I will get more information about the readings when I pick her up.

There's some very good info

here

and

here

and

here

Thanks for those links, they and the others I have googled give the readings in a different format being USA sites, so I can't compare them with Ebonys readings, which are

BUN 5.8 Normal range 2.5 - 8.9

CRE 144 " " 27 -124

The Vet had left when I picked up Ebony, but the nurses gave me a copy of her readings. Apparently the did a urine test as well, but I don't know the results of those, they weren't entered on the computer.

Thanks for your help, I appreciate it.

[Trishm]

Off the top of my head, Hills w/d is an appropriate food. I recently dealt with a case where a pet was diagnosed with 'kidney' disease elsewhere (it does not have kidney disease), and put on k/d, then subsequently developed pancreatitis due the high fat content - I think either w/d or z/d were the foods recommended by the Hills technical team for concurrent diseases.

With kidney disease, the dietary protein must be of high quality more and in moderate quantities, rather than needing to be severely restricted. Certainly don't want too much protein, but it is equally important that they aren't restricted to eating a small amount of poor quality protein.

Thanks for that information, the nurse said that they had put a call into Hills and were expecting a call back tomorrow, so I expect that will be what they will advise.

I feel better now that I have some backup information.

Thanks I appreciate your help.

[Rappie]

I wouldn't be willing to make any call of kidney disease on that creatinine value without seeing urine results first. Normal greyhounds frequently have higher than 'average' creatinine levels without having associated kidney disease. Unless her urine results show reduced concentrating ability, it would not be exciting me yet. Even if her urine tests did show a low reading, I'd want to see more than one result.

[Trishm]

I wouldn't be willing to make any call of kidney disease on that creatinine value without seeing urine results first. Normal greyhounds frequently have higher than 'average' creatinine levels without having associated kidney disease. Unless her urine results show reduced concentrating ability, it would not be exciting me yet. Even if her urine tests did show a low reading, I'd want to see more than one result.

Thanks, you are making me feel a whole lot better, my Vet was unable to do the procedure due to a shoulder problem so another Vet did it, and it was she who made the diagnosis so I discovered last night. So I will endeavour to find out the urine results and get a further one later should it be a low reading, before upsetting her diet.

Ebony seems so well, looks great and this news threw me, so I am very grateful for your help.

I have 15 year old and 13 year old whippets and was not planning on a 'geriatric' grey for a few years yet.

[yellowgirl]

Hope Ebony is okay

If this helps, I have 1 dog with kidney disease and 1 dog with pancreatitis. They now both have the same food:

Tucker Time roll - Calorie Control

Protein 10%

Fat 4%

Phosphorus 0.3% (needs to be low for kidney disease)

and the Nutro Lite dry food

Protein 19%

Fat 9%

Gradually weaned Pepper (kidney disease) over to Nutro from the Hill's k/d dry

Pepper also has a calcium and vitD3 powder twice a day on her food. I just took one of her regular urine samples to the vet this morning and her levels are great

[Trishm]

Thanks for that information YGirl, I am saving all this information, hopefully her levels are OK for a grey, we need more testing going by the other information kindly given.

Trish

[anniek]

Trish,

If you can email me the results you have, I will email them on to a lady who is an expert at reading greyhound blood and stuff.

[email protected]

[Little Gifts]

Trishm my staffy girl has had pancreatitis since 2000. She has just turned 16. Ever since her diagnosis I have fed her a strict diet of the Hills Prescription w/d. She gets 1 cup dry in the morning and 1 cup dry and half a tin of wet in the evening. For snacks she gets bits of toast (with nothing on it), raw carrot and vegetarian pigs ears. Absolutely no other scraps but sometimes I give her leftover plain rice, pasta or steamed vegies. She has done really, really well on this diet. She drinks a massive amount of water but has not become diabetic. Her poos are HUGE. I don't know how they don't hurt coming out!

My vet is very much into homeopathic stuff so in the early days if ever she has a tummy upset I keep nux vomica bolles on hand for her. My vet also found a homemade diet for pancreatitis as I was keen on doing it myself but it contained about 20 ingredients and it was too much for me and she settled so well on the Hills that I just stayed with that. I know my vet sourced the diet from a colleague OS and unfortunately I no longer have a copy of it or I'd give it to you. Given the Internet is more popular than when she got the diet for me you might be lucky and find something online.

[Giveitago]

Our 11 y.o red cattle was dx with pancreatitis earlier this year. Once we got her healthy and under control in the vets, at home she was started on a rice/kibble/vegie mix and was then put on Royal Canin Vet Prescription Gastrointestinal Low Fat kibble (protein 20%, fat 5%) - which is only available through your vet.

The kibble made her extrememly itchy and we ended up throwing out half of the bag of kibble ($125 a bag!!!).

We got the itching and irritation under control once again with rice/chicken/vegies and then introduced purina Supercoat Weight Management (protein 17%, fat 7%).

Once agin this has caused massive itching and skin irritation (to the point none of us had any sleep last night!).

So we are going to go back to a diet of purely rice/chicken/vegies. We cook the rice in low salt chicken stock, use chicken breast with no fat or skin, and use a couple bags of frozen begies (with no onions). If we are REALLY lazy we even buy the microwave rice packets, but usually we do a big cook up once a fortnight for her.

This is the only thing wwe have come across so far that has calmed her pacreatitis and settled her skin.

There are some tinned foods though that are 7% protein and 5% fat, so that might be an option for you?

Al the best, I hope you can get it all under control.

[Trishm]

The Pancreatitus is under control, it is the combination of the suspected kidney problems and the pancreatitus diet which had me worried.

I could forsee that it would be difficult to combine a low fat, low protein diet, with enough good protein yet keeping it low fat.

Due to some great advice from this forum it seems that the 'kidney problem' may not be a problem due to the fact that greyhounds readings are very different from the other breeds of dogs. Will do further testing in a couple of months to confirm this.

Ebony is on the RC Low Fat digestive dry and canned diet, with added veggies and sometimes rice or pasta.

Thanks to everyone for your help and concern.

[Everythings Shiny]

We done a training day with Hills recently which covered this type of ailments: We were told u/d, w/d or Z/d would be best for kidney and pancreatitis - also to avoid giving scraps or treats etc as they may be rich in phosphorus and/or salt.

I'll try and find my information sheets at home if your interested... pm me!

Hope she continues to do well

Edited August 17, 2010 by Everythings Shiny

[Trishm]

We done a training day with Hills recently which covered this type of ailments: We were told u/d, w/d or Z/d would be best for kidney and pancreatitis - also to avoid giving scraps or treats etc as they may be rich in phosphorus and/or salt.

I'll try and find my information sheets at home if your interested... pm me!

Hope she continues to do well

pm sent, thanks.