Did you know that one in three cats develop kidney disease over the course of their lives? Not only that, but more than half of cats age 15 and older have some degree of kidney dysfunction. My lovely Siouxsie certainly had kidney disease in the last few years of her life, and she was about 15 when the first signs of the disease appeared in her regular senior blood test.
This post is sponsored by Pet Health Network® and the BlogPaws® Pet Influencer Network™. I am being compensated to help create awareness for the importance of the IDEXX SDMA™ kidney screening test for pets, but we only share information we feel is relevant to our readers. Neither Pet Health Network® or IDEXX is responsible for the content of this article.
The thing is, the measurements you see in your cat’s regular senior blood panel don’t show evidence of feline kidney disease until most of the kidney’ function has been permanently lost. But the IDEXX SDMA™ test will allow your vet to detect kidney problems in your cat months, if not years, earlier than standard blood work.
The IDEXX SDMA is a new test for chronic kidney disease in cats that will allow you and your vet to make your feline friend’s life better, for longer. By detecting kidney disease earlier with the IDEXX SDMA, much more of your cat’s kidney function will be intact.
If I had known earlier on about Siouxsie’s kidney problems, she may have lived even longer than the 19 years she shared with me. She might have been able to avoid the pain and discomfort of the severe urinary tract infections she suffered. My vet told me that UTIs are a common complication of feline kidney disease because failing kidneys leave cats’ urine too watery to prevent bacteria from growing in the bladder.
Siouxsie ultimately died due to complications of her kidney disease.
I don’t want to make the same mistake with Thomas.
Thomas had blood work at his semi-annual senior exam in February, and my vet was very pleased with his kidney function as shown in the standard blood panel. But the next time he goes in for his check-up, I’m definitely going to ask my vet about the IDEXX SDMA test. If he has early stage kidney disease, I want to know about it now because there’s a lot more I’ll be able to do to keep him healthy.
I’d definitely encourage you to ask your vet about the IDEXX SDMA test, too. Keep up on the latest developments by following Pet Health Network on Facebook.
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Pet Health Network®. The opinions and text are all mine.
JaneA Kelley is a punk rock cat mom and award-winning blogger. She is a regular columnist for Catster Magazine, and she and the Paws and Effect Gang share a home in the beautiful Pacific Northwest.
Boodie is due for her senior wellness exam soon, and my human is going to ask about the IDEXX SDMA test too.
I lost my beloved little Pumpkin at an early age (around 7) I believe as a result of kidney disease. I found her at our feral colony, a bright orange unaltered tabby, had her spayed and returned her. Brought her to my house twice to recover once from an upper respiratory and another time from an auto immune disease which made her attack her body. The last time she did not leave. She had a few steroid shots and never bit herself like that again. However her teeth went bad and twice she had surgeries to remove them all. She loved hard food so it was hard getting her to eat again. I noticed she had a kidney infection only once and it was treated but on and off I would find urine on the plastic outside the litter box and I thought it was probably her way of telling me something was wrong. About 6 months after the last surgery she stopped eating hard food although she had an appetite. She had a terrible urinary infection and we treated that but she still barely ate. After going down to four pounds I took her back to the vet and he felt a mass on her kidney. My poor baby had problems all her short life but she tried to play anyway and loved all the other cats. She is now with her favorite, Little Bit, who passed at 16. I’m sure she had kidney problems from the beginning and I sometimes believe that being under anesthetic weakens the kidneys (any thoughts on this, guys?), but I wish I had known how to find this out sooner. Miss my sweet orange baby.