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Cats and dogs detox diet
You know how some dogs and cats (usually those with white fur in the eye area) can have STAINING in the fur emanating from the tear duct area? I wonder if this is a sign of high VA in the pet-- the poor pet might have dry eye and etc. I personally wake up every day with eye residue... I don't know how I could live without q-tips. With white fur, this would be very similar to people who find their pillows get stained yellow and develop an odd scent.
Quote from lil chick on October 21, 2019, 9:33 amYou know how some dogs and cats (usually those with white fur in the eye area) can have STAINING in the fur emanating from the tear duct area? I wonder if this is a sign of high VA in the pet-- the poor pet might have dry eye and etc. I personally wake up every day with eye residue... I don't know how I could live without q-tips. With white fur, this would be very similar to people who find their pillows get stained yellow and develop an odd scent.
It's possible high VA contributes but I believe it is largely due to porphyrins in the tears. I have a white dog and she gets this. It is also noticeable if she licks herself a lot in a particular area eg if she gets a bite or scratch and licks excessively, her fur in that place starts to get a brownish tinge to it. I suspect it happens with many dogs it just doesn't show up against darker fur.
Thx @rachel, I have never heard of porphyrins, and see on a quick search that they are pigments (their name means purple) so I started getting interested, and found this on wikipedia:
"Porphyria is a group of diseases in which substances called porphyrins build up, negatively affecting the skin or nervous system.
Porphyria Triggers
...Some retinoids used for skin conditions like acitretin and isotretinoin..."
the plot thickens!
It appears that porphyrias are broken down by enzymes with a very similar name to the one that breaks down vit a. Possibly they both need the same building blocks, which maybe high VA uses up.
from the google machine: "The porphyrias are metabolic disorders caused by altered activity of enzymes within the heme biosynthetic pathway."
These diseases make you sun sensitive and errode your skin. (sounds familiar)
Quote from lil chick on October 21, 2019, 1:25 pmThx @rachel, I have never heard of porphyrins, and see on a quick search that they are pigments (their name means purple) so I started getting interested, and found this on wikipedia:
"Porphyria is a group of diseases in which substances called porphyrins build up, negatively affecting the skin or nervous system.
Porphyria Triggers
...Some retinoids used for skin conditions like acitretin and isotretinoin..."
the plot thickens!
It's interesting how the same culprits keep cropping up isn't it? I also noticed when looking at the other drugs in that article that can cause porphyria that some have been highlighted by Garrett Smith as disrupting the mechanisms that break down retinoids.
Need advice.
The bad news is, my (suspected) VA toxic cat has come down with kidney disease. He is 17 years old. (my other cat is still going strong at the same age) (17 is old for a cat)
The vet wants me to put him on a kidney-disease canned diet (rather than the fresh carnivore diet I'm giving him). He also wants me to give him stool softener (which seems important) and kidney meds.
The good news is his spine looks good, and so the vet thinks I could be wrong about the VA toxicity (since bony formation along the spine is what they look for) either that, or any VA problems are in the rear view mirror.
It doesn't really appear that they (vets) have linked, in their minds, the prevalence of kidney disease in cats late in life, and the possibility that it is from VA in their feed.
Kitty is having trouble with dehydration, constipation and weight loss.
Would love any advice!
So sorry to hear your cat is poorly! Are you able to find a forum or FB group for raw feeding? I think that might be a good place to seek advice re kidney disease and raw feeding. You will have to put the advice through a VA filter as most raw feeders I've come across see liver as a vital part of the diet but you will often find others who have encountered the same health problems and at the least get an alternative perspective to diet and health. Many are also fans of alternative treatments.
I would be wary of any commercially prepared foods intended for specific health problems as they are often full of crap ingredients. I would be looking at what the aim of the kidney-disease food and seeing if I could achieve the same thing myself. eg is it low in something or supplying extra something and seeing if I could achieve that be tweaking the food you are already giving.
These are just my thoughts. Hope you are able to work something out to help your cat.
x
@rachel that is wonderful advice, thank you.
I did read one raw expert say that it would be a step down to get off of a real meat diet and onto any canned "special" diet.
It appears he will be needing lots of fluids, and I think I will be giving broth along with all meat. Perhaps fiber too.
One of the odd things I've seen, or maybe it isn't so odd, is that they want to give LESS PROTEIN to cats with kidney disease.
Sounds scarily like the experiments that Grant got so angry with. Eating protein isn't causing the protein coming out in the urine! Disease is.
update: I've got my two elderly cats on (haha, didn't expect this) the kidney-disease special formula from the vet.
This is because it is the only thing they will eat in generous amounts. And it is creating stools they can pass (also important).
They really need to gain weight, and they really need to poo.
At this point in their lives, I just need to keep food going through them. I've heard it explained that cats go down hill quite quickly with kidney disease when they stop eating and when they get constipated. We have talked about that here, about how people can get toxic when they fast, or when the bowels aren't cleansing properly.
Hopefully the year of VA detox that they went through will still help them in the long run. There ARE VA ingredients (like liver) in this food. They will still be getting some carnivore stuff as well to liven things up and daily visits to outside for sunshine and grass.
I think that I made some mistakes with the carnivore diet I had them on. I had some trouble adapting them to eating bones at all, (can't teach old cats new tricks?) and when you think about it... bones (fur, feathers) are the "fiber" that carnivores eat.
If a cat won't eat bones, then there has to be a replacement, like perhaps a veg fiber.
We've seen here how important fiber is for taking toxins away.