Full Diary Part 11

[Continued from Full Diary Part 10]

Canine kidney failure?  I said NO WAY!   I DID help my dog SURVIVE kidney disease!

9-11-13 – It’s hard to believe, but with my determination to just say NO to canine kidney failure, she is doing even better physiologically with my final food and vitamin/mineral/herb choices, plus food combining and sequential eating.  Pnut is still showing normally-occurring increased signs of age (she’ll be 14 soon, 2 years after diagnosis) and difficulty with her luxating patella, hearing and eyesight but she still eats her own tripe (I still fingerfeed those fruits and veggies that would be hard to expect her to eat from a bowl) goes for her walks, stands straighter, joins in the family routine and sleeps peacefully and soundly in naps and all night long

I have increased her salmon oil to .50mL twice a day (with the cabbage) from .40 and I stopped giving Marmite with the cabbage and switched it instead to her afternoon veggies, and increased the amount and perhaps this is contributing to her improved overall wellness. And I am continuing to give the Marrow plus between meals (just twice a day, 3X would be better but haven’t been successful at working a 3^rd serving in after dinner since she gets her potassium supplement before a night time nap and then cabbage/iron/honey/salmon oil before bed.

9-17-13 Well, her latest 90 day blood work and urinalysis came back and all is really great. The doctor said she is doing so great and that is because we are maintaining the status quo. You can’t reverse kidney disease and again the object is to save the remaining nephrons so they can carry on as best possible. So the fact that she is not worsening is exactly what I want to accomplish.

Giving her the PhosFree is paying off as her anemia lessened considerably and she is just barely anemic now. But her T4 was down and that is the thyroid function and I realized one thing I didn’t think of in giving her NAPA cabbage as her green leafy vegetable with her salmon oil/honey/PhosFree twice a day is that cabbage inhibits thyroid function because it contains Goitrogen [109] So today, I have switched her green leafy vegetable to iceburg lettuce.

In reading about this subject I also came to realize how important iodine is to thyroid function and realized she may not get any. Even though very little is needed I want to be sure that she gets some and strawberries and cranberries both contain iodine but cranberries are good for urinary tract health warding off kidney infections which are a greater risk with kidney disease plus strawberries have more phosphorus than calcium so I’ll go with organic cranberries (see nutritiondata.com for details between the two.)

10-4-13 Upped Ubiquinol to 4 drops and lessened everything else as her anemia is just barely there. Also decided to add back into her supplements Vitamin C, because I have read again how refrigeration breaks down the natural C available in the foods I’m giving her – and as small as she is I don’t puree a new batch of veggie or fruit smoothing but every 4 or 5 days. Also, if her natural appetite isn’t enough to eat a generous amount of tripe, what she leaves in her bowl I finger feed her and she takes it quite happily.

She is still amazingly well – just getting older as she’ll be 14 in a month. So hard to believe.

11/8/13 – I am so thrilled and surprised that I just noticed a liquid vitamin I bought, (one very expensive) that I expected I would be throwing out, I am now reordering -Ubiquinol. How exciting is that?  I say Hah! to canine kidney failure.

11/18/13 – Made the mistake of not giving her the evening Tripe (protein meal which is Venison on Thursdays) because after she has her veggies she often just goes right to the living room couch so I let her be and just picked up feeding with the prescription potassium supplement at 11pm then lettuce/salmon oil/E/honey/iron any time after a half hour has passed depending on when I want to go to bed. So I probably missed 3 evening protein meals out of 5 days and her legs started getting weak again, like before, with her right front leg especially, so I made sure I give her the evening protein and within two days she was much stronger. Turning 14 real soon and I have to keep in mind normal aging presents other problems I must address and I’m happy I’m not concerned any more about canine kidney failure!

11/20/13 Was wondering if I should be concerned with how much iron I am still giving her, thinking at the last blood work she was just barely on the anemic side so next blood draw mid-December should take her out of the anemic range, but how high should I want her blood test range to be. She again was just barely below the minimum, and 90 days later I think she will be a little above the minimum so I would guess I should stay diligent giving her a healthy amount each time to try to get her into the middle of the range or even on the high side. I’ll speak with the doctor about that. But in researching it on the Internet just now, I read that iron is better absorbed when taken with Vitamin C, so I will from now on be sure to add Vit C every time I feed a snack/meal with iron (lettuce/honey/E/iron in am ½ hr after fruit, veggie snack around 5:30pm, and lettuce etc. again at midnight.

11/26/13- I upped the protein but her rear legs have not improved that much, also upped the Glucosamine back to as before but her luxating patella has made it almost impossible for her to walk over the last 10 days. So I went online again, read about rear lifting harnesses, and since she is so small, crafted my own out of a planter’s fascitis foot wrap which was just a small oval with Velcro straps that wrapped around it to hold it on the foot. Looked at a video on a handicapped site, and saw their hind leg lift laying on the ground and cut two leg holes, and a notch out of it so she could pee, and put it on her with a lead wrapped thru the top and voila- it helped her SO MUCH. And it has way exceeded my expectations, as not only does it make walking WAY easier for her and more pleasurable, a more lasting effect is that by doing so it causes her joints to open up again, to walk more like normal, rather than hunkered down, just crabbing along, and surprisingly that has carried over to when she doesn’t have the strap on! She stands straight often now, moves around more easily – when before she would just lay around all the time. She was comfortable then, and alert, but it was too much effort to try to get anywhere, so she just laid wherever I put her down. Now, she is perking up and being more active again. Hallelujah! And tomorrow, she will be 14 years old.  My vet said she had stage 4 luxating patella which is starting to make it really hard for her to get around.  I put throw rugs everywhere on her normal paths, and her steps up to the couches were replaced with ramps some time ago.  (Actually used my ironing board in the living room with a rug bungied to it and pillows at the sides in case she got to close to the edge.)

Winning against canine kidney failure!

Feb. 5, old age is really slowing her down but nothing appears to be from canine kidney failure. Gets around very slowly, but does still get around, climbing her long 7’ ramp to the couch probably 3 – 5 times a day! Still has a good appetite although I had been finger feeding her everything for a couple of weeks now, so I went to syringe feeding which she accepts readily and she opens her mouth hungrily and is happy to be held and fed. She is 14 and 3 months now and I know when she was diagnosed with kidney disease at 12, the doctors didn’t think she would last 6 months. The last time I was at the doctors picking up her RenaPlus the office staff couldn’t express strongly enough what a wonderful job I was doing with her.  Her hearing and eyesight is not as good as it once was, so the graying little lady takes great naps!

Feb. 10, seeing more signs of aging but she still gets up to pee and poop, and her stools are firm, and urine is plentiful and normal at perhaps three times a day. No excessive thirst, just getting very hard for her to get around with the luxating patella and approaching 15 years old. I can tell the end is coming but I’m certain it is unrelated to kidney disease and just old age.

Feb. 14, now I am really seeing the end coming as she is deteriorating pretty rapidly, with disorientation, listlessness, lethargy, no desire to eat or drink, or get up and walk around. I knew when she was no longer climbing her ramp to the couch the end would be near. And again, from what I have read, this is unrelated to canine kidney failure as end stage kidney failure involves vomiting, diarrhea and tremors.   She hasn’t thrown up or had diarrhea since I started her on tripe plus vitamins, minerals and herbs some 3 or 4 months right after being diagnosed – going on 3 years ago. The doctors didn’t think she’s see her 13th birthday,my husband tried to prepare me she probably wouldn’t see her 14th.  But she passed early Saturday morning, peacefully with very little discomfort on her way to 15.

I am proud I got to enjoy her almost three full years after being diagnosed with kidney disease and again, I truly believe she passed of natural old age.  I have had 11 Chihuahuas and only two of them had lived longer at 15  and 15 ½ Most lived 11 ½ to 13 ½ years old so Pnut has done much better than most. Online it states the average age of a Chihuahua is 12 years.  Again, she was going on 15!   Pnut had a very good life and she will be missed so much but I took good care of her and gave her an enjoyable normal old age so I have no guilt or regrets.

Home