Lab with high BUN…diet issue?

[Lisa RMember]

My 7 year old chocolate lab has had a rising BUN count in his blood. His creatinine level is increasing very slightly, not proportionally in the manner the vet would expect if if we’re kidney disease. Additionally, his BUN continued to go up on RX kidney food and meds. The vet is baffled and doesn’t understand what the issue is.

I think it’s related to his diet in some way. He has always been, as my vet called him, a “fat magnet” since we rescued him 3 years ago. He gained a ton of weight very quickly when he first came to us, despite never being fed table food, etc, and continued to gain on small servings of RX diet food (from not quite 80 lbs to over 100). Currently he is on a very low quantity of weight mgmt IAMS, supplemented with green beans to fill him up. He was losing very little, very slowly and finally showed a big decrease in weight when we eliminated rawhide from his diet (unless it’s kidney disease and it just happens to coincide with the elimination of rawhide).

I think there is some dietary issue and he needs a different kind of food or supplement….maybe there is some intolerance for food we are feeding him and he needs grain free or salmon or freeze dried or something…but I don’t know what to try. The vet is advising against anything high protein in case he does have kidney problems but I’ve reqd every that is not necessarily a factor in kidney isses for dogs. But she doesn’t know what we should try.

Any thoughts?

[InkedMarieMember]

I cant help with the BUN issues but as you know, Iams is poor quality. I had good luck with Wellness Core reduced fat but if I needed a “diet” food, I’d choose Annamaet Lean.

[aimeeMember]

Hi Lisa,

So sorry to hear about your lab: ( Increased BUN from diet is tied into protein but it sounds like your dog isn’t eating a lot of protein. Rawhide is a source of protein, but he is off those now. Any other high protein chews you give him consistently? Rawhide contributes calories too so hope the weight loss is from eliminating those from the diet vs something else.

Another source of protein that your vet probably already considered is from bleeding into the gut. This may or may not show up on a regular blood count. A rectic count in addition to the normal blood counts could be done to make sure that constant regeneration isn’t going on.

If this still could be kidney problems from a diet perspective controlled phosphorus levels are recommended in kidney disease. Phosphorus parallels protein which is likely where the rec to avoid high protein comes from.

Sounds like more diagnostics will be needed to sort this out.

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