I missed a checkup post! Looking back to January, she had been prescribed the Atopica for some scabbing that kept occurring around her eyes and she continues to be on that. Since starting that daily pill, she has only had one very mild breakout of scabbing around her eyes, but it cleared up quickly after we bumped up the dose.
We also started giving her an appetite stimulant to get her to eat more and put on some weight. It’s working so far, she still isn’t the biggest eater, so I think the pill bothers her because she has to eat a lot. We’re planning on switching over to a lower dose that she can take a bit more often to even out her eating schedule. She’s also been on Calcitriol, an active form of Vitamin D (info about usage in renal failure cats here). This spring she also suffered a UTI, which is pretty common in renal failure felines, but we’d gotten lucky so far. Thankfully a batch of antibiotics knocked it out without much trouble and it hasn’t returned. Finally, I mentioned in January that she’d been suffering some with constipation. That has continued and the dermatologist assured us it was unrelated to any of her medication. It hasn’t subsided, so we’re now giving both cats a small dollop of wet K/D food every night, and Simcoe’s getting some fiber mixed in. When she’s not stubborn about eating it, it seems to be doing the trick.
Levels! First up, her weight. In January she was at 8.8lbs. In March she dropped to the lowest she’s been, 8.3. By her appointment on June 29th she was up a bit to 8.4. Keeping her at a healthy weight is incredibly important, hopefully the new appetite stimulant regime will continue to help with that.
Her BUN dipped in March a bit, going from 71 from 85. In June it had risen again, now sitting at 100. As levels go, the vet seems to be less concerned about this and looking more at her CRE levels.
…which are also continuing to rise. 4.6 in January, 5.1 in March and now at 5.5. As expected, this is simply the renal failure continuing to progress like we always knew it would.
As always we’re enjoying our time together and making sure she’s continuing to live a healthy, active life. She certainly doesn’t care for all the traveling I do, including during the last vet appointment (MJ ended up taking her). I am home most of the time though since I work from home, so I can keep an eye on her and spend lots of quality time together.
