Indy now has a ramped up CKD battle plan!!
As far as the vet is concerned, she has prescribed daily 250ml subcut for Indy which we had already started two days ago. She has also added Renal-P to Indy’s Renal-N so that phosphorus control is covered as well.
On our own, we have doubled the dosage of Indy’s CKD supplements, for both Astro’s Oil’s NC-Scrub as well as Pet Wellbeing’s Kidney Support Gold.
Even though Indy’s kidney readings are high, he is clinically “okay”. He looks well and he has good appetite too, so that’s good.
What matters most for me, in caring for anyone, human or animal, is that “moments matter”. When there is reasonable clinical good health and an appetite and good elimination (able to pee and poop), that’s good enough. These are all good moments in life.
We’re in this together all the way, Indy!!
Indy is also on a daily pre+probiotic and I’m doing probiotic rotation for all our cats (except Smurfy, Minnie and Samantha as they are untouchables). I have not started Gerald and Misty on it either since Gerald had been given the 2-week lasting Convenia antibiotic injection. Will wait for the two weeks to pass.
The Blondies seem to love their daily probiotics, which I mix with some Ciao treat. I’ve been letting Samantha sniff at it but she’d rather play it safe. Minnie won’t even come near. Smurfy is being cautious but I think I may be able to achieve something with him, given time.
Meanwhile, I’ve still been asking for reliable thoughts on the use of probiotics and this applies to both us humans as well as our cats and dogs. A friend feels that healthy pets already have sufficient healthy flora in their gut so why is there a need to add on? But how do you know there’s sufficient would be my next question. My raw-feeding friend says all raw food already has healthy bacteria so he wouldn’t add on unless the pet has been on a course of antibiotics recently. As for prebiotics, he’d just add on some pumpkin and that would be sufficient.
My other friend who has a lot of experience in boarding cats and dogs say that her boarders’ health improve a great deal after she gave them a daily dose of pre+probiotics. Even the effects of flu is diminished and the boarders heal so much faster. She compared the effects of probiotics to popular immune boosters like Vetri DMG and L-Lysine and the former appears to be much more effective. She noticed that allergies also decreased when her pets were put on pre+probiotics.
Here’s more from her:
If it’s one supplement to give, we will always vouch for a good probiotic to be given consistently. I have to send more info on this later, but often advice like that, where does their validation from and where do these friends learn from first? Is there a way they know and can measure the vast microbiome diversity in one’s gut? How does it get measured and how do they know its balances , and what is lost and impacts it even from the water we drink or animals are given, micro toxins from food, genetics, etc.? Do they judge it by when animals or humans show symptoms? Probiotics is something we give daily if not every other day and not only when animals have issues. When you study more about gut health, for humans and animals, its the foundation of health where even 80% of immunity starts in the gut. With our experience, we can see a difference in immunity, etc even with our own groups and some animals with markers just feel better. Every animal’s physiological makeup is also different, some can also be born with weaker gut health, etc. Anyhow, this is a huge topic of discussion and there’s lots of aspects and education and understanding involved. Probiotic strain diversity is key, prevention is better than cure. In our supplements regimen, though again looking at all animals and requirements may be different, a good omega oil and probiotics are often main key bases to cover as its also not something we see lost can get enough through diet alone. We also add a good antioxidant, for eg. turkey tail mushroom. We rotate these supplements for our pets.
I do agree with the above very much, especially the part about 80% immunity (and if I may add, general health) starting in the gut. I agree! I’ve been personally battling bipolar depression for more than 30 years and finally (thanks to my brilliant pharmacist!), we found something that seems to be working – a psychobiotic (which is a probiotic for mental health) and magnesium. This combo is now my life-saving regimen of supplements. Two years and counting…
If I’m down, AnimalCare is also down, so that’s something I cannot risk happening again and again. With age, it does get harder to battle and rise above the debilitating effect of depression. So yes, I need my life-saving combo!