Hi Kelsey,
Just my 2 cents worth…my girl started showing symptoms of slightly elevated kidney numbers over a year ago with high BP. Vet put her on BP med and did not advise me to change her diet or even come back to have her checked until her regular dental cleaning that we do annually. (He may have assumed I knew what to do to change her diet). Fast forward a year, her blood work numbers are off the chart showing stage 3 renal disease. I changed vets as I felt that my old vet basically wrote her off now that she has kidney disease. He told me this year change her food to RX food which she will absolutely not eat. We then changed vets… I have had blood tests every month since January 2017 and her kidney function continues to decline. We then took her to a nutritionist so he could give us a recipe for a home made diet that she will actually eat and they added an additional blood pressure med to see if it will lower her BP. I hate to think that I have failed her by not taking steps to slow this disease down when it was first mentioned. My girl did not show any symptoms of anything wrong. She did not drink excessively, not peeing more than normal…nothing until the last few months as the kidneys have continued to fail. Once your pup has KD you can not make the kidneys better.
My advice is to do whatever it takes to stabilize her kidney function (changing food, doing home cooked meal with less protein, which then lowers the phosphorus level which is what actually makes them feel bad…etc.). Please make sure that your vet monitors the blood pressure as high blood pressure continues to damage the filtering part of the kidneys. I am hoping that you can take steps now to head off the progression of kidney disease. It is sad to watch your baby suffer and you can not help them feel better.
