4 Signs That Your Cat Is Having Kidney Problems
Posted on: 13 January 2016
Kidney disease is one of the most common illnesses for a cat to acquire in their lives, but its symptoms often go unnoticed. While there's no known cure for kidney disease in cats at this time, recognizing the symptoms can help you and your veterinarian to come up with a treatment plan and slow the progression of the disease. Here are four symptoms of kidney disease that you may have overlooked in your own cat.
Excessive Thirst
As the kidneys begin to fail, cats often experience a stronger drive to drink more liquids. This is the body's way of coping with the reduced abilities of the kidneys. Kidneys are supposed to filter out toxins from your cat's body, but as they begin to fail, they're less capable of doing so. By drinking more, the cat is able to boost the kidneys' abilities by providing necessary hydration to help filter out toxins and byproducts from their blood. However, drinking more isn't a cure, and unfortunately, excessive drinking can actually stress the kidneys further.
Frequent Litter Box Breaks
Kidneys that are failing may produce more urine because they're not as capable of making use of the water that a cat consumes. Whether or not your cat is drinking more than usual, you may have noticed that they're making frequent litter box breaks to urinate. Other signs that their kidneys are having problems may be that you can audibly hear them urinate (indicating that there is a great deal of pressure exerted to empty their bladders), or that they may have accidents and urinate somewhere other than the litter box.
Digestion Problems
Unfortunately, while kidney disease tends to affect elderly cats the most, and elderly cats tend to lose weight with their old age, kidney disease can add on to this weight loss. When toxic byproducts build up in the blood, cats can become nauseated, unwilling to eat, and may be prone to vomiting when they do eat. While cats do sometimes vomit under normal circumstances, like coughing up a hairball, if your cat is frequently vomiting, it may indicate a problem with their kidneys.
Anemia
Cats who go through kidney failure or kidney disease often experience anemia as well. While the cat's bone marrow is responsible for creating more red blood cells, the bone marrow relies on a hormone that the kidneys normally produce, called erythropoietin. When the kidneys are under stress, they don't produce adequate quantities of erythropoietin, so the bone marrow produces fewer red blood cells, resulting in anemia.
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