Our page about urinary tract and kidney problems in dogs, cats, and other pets has become rather full. This page is a continuation.
Loving, responsible pet care means going to the vet when problems occur...and understanding that good veterinary care requires attention to detail, a good exam, the possible expense of additional lab work, and careful treatment, monitoring, and follow up until the problem is improved as best as possible.
What's On This Page:
About our new Urine Protein Test for detecting Kidney Disease
As of the summer of 2002, we vets now have a test kit that detects albumin in urine fairly accurately. Albumin is one of the more important proteins in the blood stream (made by the liver), and if the kidney is healthy, very little albumin is supposed to end up in the urine. Healthy kidneys are supposed to block or prevent the leakage of proteins into the urine. But this is exactly what happens during the early stages of kidney disease ... the most common cause of death in both cats and dogs after middle age.
Now that we have this test kit, we are able to detect early kidney disease long before obvious symptoms show up and before other routine blood tests pick it up. It's a fairly inexpensive test ($25 at our clinic).
If we can detect kidney disease in it's early stages, we can greatly reduce and minimize the problems of the disease with early treatment and special diets.
So, if you have a middle age cat or dog, seriously consider asking your vet to run an urine albumin screen.
I'll add more detail later, but it's nice to detect kidney problems early because it's a disease where diet can make a big difference:
Hill's, Eukanuba, Waltham, and Purina all make special prescription diets that minimize the symptoms and discomfort of kidney disease AND extend quality life by about 30%. (More about the nutritional support of different diseases are on (or will be) our nutrition page.
