Diet and liver failure in cats

[bluemoose]

My family has three cats. Only my cat, Remy, eats raw (whole prey). The other two eat mostly Costco brand dry cat food. My father feeds them and I've tried repeatedly to tell him why cats shouldn't eat dry food and that the food he's feeding is full of fillers but he always tells me they drink plenty of water and there's no corn in the food so it's fine. My parents don't believe raw diets hold any benefit over kibble and that most kibbles are the same so you may as well get the cheapest one.

So our oldest cat Willow (eight years old) used to be really, really fat. In addition to feeding low quality dry food, he used to free feed them. I did manage to convince him to feed twice a day instead to help her lose weight so he started putting out some food twice a day instead of leaving a bowl full all the time. She was doing well with that and slowly dropping some pounds.

Because the other two cats eat dry crap and I don't want my cat to eat it, the dry food is kept in my parent's room with the door closed and those two cats go in and out of that room as they please when someone opens it while Remy is forbidden to go there. So a lot of the time Willow just hangs out in there and I don't see her everyday.

I was in there looking for something on the 16th and I saw Willow on the bed. I went over and pet her and she was REALLY skinny. Her backbone and hips were sticking out and her fur was really dull. I mentioned to my parents that she had lost way too much weight way too fast and they said she'd pretty much stopped eating. I saw her again yesterday, one day later, and she looked even skinnier. So I told my parents she really needed to go to the vet.

My dad took her this morning and the vet said her liver is failing. He said it doesn't appear to be liver cancer but she's exhibiting jaundice. They're running some tests right now to determine the extent of the damage to the liver. If it's not too far gone he said she may be able to recover. Otherwise I assume we'll be euthanizing her.

So I have two questions, could her diet have caused/contributed to this condition? She's been eating like this her whole life and she's eight. Also, if the tests show she could recover, any advice on caring for a liver damaged cat? I should have more info on her condition within the hour when they finish the tests.

[Deleted]

The poor girl! I'm thinking the liver is an accessory organ to the digestive system, and if it's been over-taxed by having to filter unnatural chemicals (lots of preservatives in those cheap foods) and process too many carbs (the liver turns them into glycogen for long term energy storage), it would make sense that it would eventually fail...but I don't know what specific processes or compounds would cause that, I'm just making a semi-educated guess. 8 isn't very old for a cat, and the liver's generally a pretty resilient organ, hopefully the vet has some advice that will help her out.

[bluemoose]

That's what I was thinking.

We called the vet and he she may recover. He said he wagers her odds to be 50/50 at this point. He gave her some antibiotics and vitamin shots and said since she doesn't appear to be suffering to take her home and see how she does.

He recommended we put her on a senior cat food because they're lower in protein. I feel that the food she's been eating can't be that high in protein to start with considering what it's made of so I'm not so sure on that. This vet also recommends dry food over wet so I don't trust his opinion on foods anyway but of course my father does.

I'm more inclined to put her on a good wet food like Wellness core canned since wet foods are mostly moisture anyway. What do you guys think?

[Deleted]

I think the wellness core sounds like the way to go...low protein makes sense since the liver metabolizes proteins and if it's already damaged you don't want to overwork it, but the protein you do get into her should be high quality with as little fillers as possible so she has the nutrition needed to repair her cells without having to do too much extra work on the filler crap, and I'm a big believer in the healing power of proper hydration, cells can't function efficiently if they're dehydrated and dry food won't help that.

[bluemoose]

My father came home and said, "The grocery store didn't have any senior cat food so I got a can of something called Fancy Feast." Me: *shakes head*

I did convince him to feed the cans of Wellness Core canned I bought instead once the Fancy Feast is gone. The cans say 12% protein which isn't too high and I know the protein comes from good sources because Wellness Core is grain free with several meat based protein sources. I have the chicken, turkey, and chicken liver recipe and the salmon, whitefish, and herring recipe for variety.

[Heather]

For fear of sounding like an old nag....that is what my Samurai looked like and the prognosis that the vet gave me. Samurai was 12 yrs old. The vet gave him a death sentence...6 months maybe 8 but no more. I was heartbroken. I decided that I would switch him, just like the dog (well not quite the old kibble addict didn't "just switch" ) He did eventually switch....he lived until he was 22 yrs old and died basically of old age. The vet said she could say renal failure but she felt at 22 yrs of age that she could honestly say "old age". Unfortunately, your parents don't believe that diet has anything to do with this downturn, there's not much you can do otherwise Don't feed senior food to the kitty unless, you want it to starve to death. There isn't enough fat in the diet to support a carnivore.
ciao

[bluemoose]

I'll tell my father your about your experience and see if I can get him to take her off the dry food completely and just feed the Wellness Core canned. She'll eat raw but I really can't afford to feed everyone else's pets in the house raw.

[Deleted]

I understand exactly how you feel you can't help every animal, unfortunately. But you do what you can

[Sherry]

I don't know if this is any help to you, but if you can get your father to take a look at this pic:

This guy is 17, will be 18 in August. He was fed Medical most of his life til he was 14. Now, he's on Evo wet, mixed with Merrick's Before Grain wet(1/2 tsp for flavour ). He had crystals almost yearly til he went on the wet.
No reason for a cat to die from liver failure at the age of 8. That's still a very young cat!