A practicing veterinarian walks you through your cat's chronic kidney disease diagnosis, one step at a time. Free, no products, no sign-up.https://kidneycats.org/en-ushttps://kidneycats.org/guides/appetite/https://kidneycats.org/guides/appetite/A kidney cat who stops eating is usually nauseated, not stubborn. Uremic toxins, high phosphorus and stomach acid all make food repulsive, and cats learn to hate a food after one bad meal. Treating the nausea, warming the food and changing the texture beat hunting for a new flavor almost every time.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://kidneycats.org/guides/anemia/https://kidneycats.org/guides/anemia/Healthy kidneys make a hormone that tells the bone marrow to produce red blood cells. As kidney tissue is lost that signal fades and she becomes anemic: tired, pale in the gums, breathless on small effort. It's a later-stage problem, it's treatable, and treating it can transform how an advanced cat feels.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://kidneycats.org/guides/bloodwork-explained/https://kidneycats.org/guides/bloodwork-explained/Creatinine and SDMA are waste products her kidneys should be clearing, and they're what her stage is based on. Phosphorus drives how ill she feels. Potassium drives how strong she feels. Urine protein and blood pressure decide her treatment. Each is a separate problem with a separate fix.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://kidneycats.org/guides/blood-pressure/https://kidneycats.org/guides/blood-pressure/Yes. Between one in five and one in three kidney cats is hypertensive, and it usually causes no symptom at all until it causes a sudden permanent one, most often blindness from a detached retina. It's checked with a small cuff on a leg or the tail, it takes a few minutes, and it's controlled with a daily tablet.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://kidneycats.org/guides/costs/https://kidneycats.org/guides/costs/Ongoing costs land in three buckets: rechecks, medications, and food or fluids. The gap between the lean version of this disease and the expensive version is smaller than people fear. There are several places it's genuinely fine to save, and two I'd protect. Say your number out loud and your vet can build around it.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://kidneycats.org/guides/first-30-days/https://kidneycats.org/guides/first-30-days/The first month is about building a routine you can actually keep, not doing everything at once. Week one is hydration and one medication at a time. Week two adds the food. Week three adds home monitoring. Week four is the recheck. If it's boring by day thirty, you've done this right.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://kidneycats.org/guides/glossary/https://kidneycats.org/guides/glossary/Every word your vet used that you had to look up, defined here in a line each, grouped by where you'll meet it. Below the glossary is a short list of outside sources I'd send my own clients to, and an honest note about the popular ones I've deliberately left off it.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://kidneycats.org/guides/grief/https://kidneycats.org/guides/grief/Yes, it's normal, and it isn't out of proportion. Grief after a long illness carries its own particular sting, because you spent months as her nurse and the relief you feel afterward can look, from the inside, like guilt. It isn't guilt. Losing an animal you cared for daily doesn't need justifying to anybody.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://kidneycats.org/guides/crisis-days/https://kidneycats.org/guides/crisis-days/A crisis usually looks like this: she stops eating, she's hiding, and she seems suddenly older than she did last week. Often something treatable is sitting on top of the kidney disease, usually dehydration or an infection. Some crises turn around in a few days. Some are the disease moving. You find out by treating.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://kidneycats.org/guides/fluids-troubleshooting/https://kidneycats.org/guides/fluids-troubleshooting/Almost every fluids problem has a mechanical cause you can fix: fluid that's too cold, a dull needle, a flow that's too slow, or a needle that has gone through and out the other side. A soft lump that travels downward over a few hours is normal. Four things aren't, and they're at the bottom of this page.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://kidneycats.org/guides/kidney-diets/https://kidneycats.org/guides/kidney-diets/A therapeutic kidney diet is the one dietary change with good evidence behind it, and it works mainly by lowering phosphorus, not by lowering protein. It's also the thing cats refuse most often. Canned beats dry, and a cat eating an ordinary food beats a cat refusing the correct one.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://kidneycats.org/guides/medications-overview/https://kidneycats.org/guides/medications-overview/Most kidney cats end up on some combination of a phosphorus binder, an antiemetic, an acid reducer, a blood pressure tablet, an appetite stimulant, and sometimes potassium. Each treats a different consequence of the disease. None of them treat the kidneys themselves, and three of them still slow it down.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://kidneycats.org/guides/life-expectancy/https://kidneycats.org/guides/life-expectancy/It depends heavily on her stage, and the honest ranges are wide. Published medians run to around three years from diagnosis in stage 2, roughly two years in stage 3, and months rather than years in stage 4. Whether she's eating, and whether she's losing protein in her urine, predict her course better than the stage.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://kidneycats.org/guides/monitoring-at-home/https://kidneycats.org/guides/monitoring-at-home/Four things tell you almost everything: what she weighs, how much she eats, how much she drinks, and what the litter box looks like. Weight is the most useful and the most skipped, so buy a kitchen scale and weigh her weekly. A cat who has eaten nothing for twenty-four hours needs a phone call, not a wait-and-see.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://kidneycats.org/guides/iris-stages/https://kidneycats.org/guides/iris-stages/IRIS staging is how vets describe how far your cat's kidney disease has gone, from stage 1, the earliest, to stage 4, the most advanced. It's based mainly on creatinine, measured when she's well hydrated and not sick with something else. The stage guides her treatment. It isn't a countdown.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://kidneycats.org/guides/multi-cat-households/https://kidneycats.org/guides/multi-cat-households/Two real problems: getting the right food into the right cat, and knowing whose output is in the litter box. Both are solved by separating them at mealtimes, and a microchip feeder if that fails. CKD isn't contagious, so your other cats are at no risk from her, though the older ones are worth screening.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://kidneycats.org/guides/my-own-cats/https://kidneycats.org/guides/my-own-cats/I've sat on my own kitchen floor with a cat in kidney failure more than once, and being a veterinarian did not make it easier. It did change what I tell clients. This page is the personal version rather than the clinical one, and it's the last one on the site still being written.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://kidneycats.org/guides/nausea-vomiting/https://kidneycats.org/guides/nausea-vomiting/Nausea in kidney disease is treatable, and treating it is usually what brings her appetite back. An antiemetic like maropitant stops the nausea. An appetite stimulant like mirtazapine only makes her hungry. A nauseated cat needs the first one, and plenty of cats are never offered it.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://kidneycats.org/guides/phosphorus-binders/https://kidneycats.org/guides/phosphorus-binders/A phosphorus binder is a powder or paste mixed into food that grabs phosphorus in the gut so it never reaches her blood. High phosphorus is a direct cause of feeling unwell and it speeds the disease along. Binders only work mixed into food, at every meal. A dose given away from food does almost nothing.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://kidneycats.org/guides/potassium/https://kidneycats.org/guides/potassium/Kidney cats leak potassium into their urine, and a low level makes them weak and wobbly, classically with the head held oddly low. Not every kidney cat needs a supplement. In late-stage disease potassium goes the other way and turns dangerous, so it's decided on a rechecked blood value, never on symptoms.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://kidneycats.org/guides/quality-of-life/https://kidneycats.org/guides/quality-of-life/There's no blood value that tells you it's time. What tells you is the pattern of her days. Pick the three things she loves most. When most of those are gone and they're not coming back, quality of life is most likely gone too. One bad day is just a bad day.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://kidneycats.org/guides/printable-guide/https://kidneycats.org/guides/printable-guide/Yes. The handout is on this page, and printing this page gives you a clean black-on-white sheet with no navigation, no colour panels and nothing that eats a clinic's toner. Any veterinary practice is welcome to print it and hand it out, unchanged or with your own details added. No charge, no permission needed.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://kidneycats.org/guides/supplements/https://kidneycats.org/guides/supplements/A short list has real evidence: omega-3 fatty acids, phosphorus binders sold as supplements, potassium and B vitamins where she's low, and probiotics as a maybe. Most of the rest are harmless and unproven, a few are a waste of money, and one or two can genuinely hurt her. Tell your vet about anything you're giving.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://kidneycats.org/guides/urinalysis/https://kidneycats.org/guides/urinalysis/Urine answers two questions blood can't. Specific gravity shows whether her kidneys can still concentrate, which often moves before any blood value does. Urine protein, the UPC, shows whether her filters are leaking, which shortens the course and has its own treatment. Her IRIS stage is incomplete without a UPC.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://kidneycats.org/guides/recheck-schedule/https://kidneycats.org/guides/recheck-schedule/It isn't one interval for everybody. A stable early-stage cat may be fine at three to six months. A stage 4 cat, or one just started on fluids or a blood pressure drug, usually needs to be back inside a week or two. A proper recheck is blood, urine, blood pressure and a weight. Not blood alone.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://kidneycats.org/guides/subcutaneous-fluids/https://kidneycats.org/guides/subcutaneous-fluids/Subcutaneous fluids means running sterile fluid under the loose skin between your cat's shoulder blades, where her body soaks it up over a few hours. It's the single most useful thing most owners learn to do at home. It looks impossible the first time and it's routine by about the fourth.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://kidneycats.org/guides/video-library/https://kidneycats.org/guides/video-library/Yes, and there are good ones already made by other veterinarians, so I've pointed you at those rather than waiting until I've filmed my own. The one thing to look for in any fluids video is the camera angle: you want it shot over the owner's shoulder, from your eye line, not from across the room.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://kidneycats.org/guides/travelling/https://kidneycats.org/guides/travelling/Usually yes, with three things in place: a written one-page protocol, a sitter who has watched you give fluids in person rather than on video, and your clinic told in advance who may bring her in and what they're authorized to spend. A stable stage 2 cat travels well. A cat who just destabilized doesn't.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://kidneycats.org/guides/what-is-ckd/https://kidneycats.org/guides/what-is-ckd/Chronic kidney disease means your cat's kidneys have permanently lost working tissue and can't filter waste out of her blood the way they used to. Chronic means it happened slowly and it won't reverse. In a great many cats it's manageable for years, and in all of them it moves in one direction.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://kidneycats.org/guides/why-did-my-cat-get-this/https://kidneycats.org/guides/why-did-my-cat-get-this/In most cats we never find a single cause, and that's the honest answer rather than a dodge. Age is the biggest factor by a distance. Genetics matter in a few breeds, and past blockages, infections, toxins and high blood pressure contribute in individual cats. Almost nothing you did or failed to do caused this.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT