Our customer asked:
My cat has just been diagnosed with chronic kidney failure, luckily just at the beginning. I've had her on whiskers cat food most of her life n now has to have a special diet. Along with fortekor 2.5mg one a day. If she does not like the new blander food, will she be able to eat whiskers senior. And will it be beneficial to her health?
Our reply:
The most important thing for your cat is that she does eat something. Cats with poor kidney function tend to lose their appetite a bit, and it is better to eat the wrong food than nothing at all. Having said that, it does seem that eating diets appropriate for reduced kidney function does help cats. They tend to do better overall if they are on the right sort of diet. The classic diet is Hills k/d prescription diet, which you can buy from us. (You do not need a prescription in fact, that is just a marketing tactic and has no legal basis.) Similar diets with different flavours are made by Royal Canin, Eukanuba, Purina, VetXX and others. They are all on our website.
If your cat will not eat a proper diet, then you can give Whiskas Senior cat food, but ideally you would add a phosphate binder to the food, to remove the potentially harmful levels of this mineral which are present in most diets. A good supplements for this purpose would be Renalzin or Ipakitine. (You do not need them if you give one of the special kidney diets.)
Fortekor works in a different way to support the kidneys, so it is a good thing to use as well as the above. Also you might find that your cat is a little more thirsty in time, so make sure she always has plenty of water available. It even helps to leave the odd glass of water on a windowsill or somewhere - cats like to find water well away from where they eat if possible.