What else can I do for my dog with protein-losing kidney disease?

Question

my dog has been diagnosed with Protein losing kidney disease. 6 years old. he's now on Benazepril 5 mg. 1.5 tablets twice daily and on NF purina kibble and wet food. HIs creatinine is 1.9, albumin 2.7, BUN 32, UPC ratio 2.6. Anything else i can do for him? i do give him a treat each day that is vegetarian and 1% protein. Pet's info: Dog | Labradoodle | Male | neutered | 6 years and 9 months old | 50 lbs

Dr. B. DVM, DACVIM (Oncology) · Accepted Answer

Hi there and thank you for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! This is a little bit of a complex question that you ask. The challenging thing with these cases is determining whether the pet has excessive protein loss through the kidney (protein losing nephropathy or PLN) because of some sort of disease process going on in the body (of which many diseases can cause this) or if the pet has kidney disease that is involving the part of the kidney that helps keep protein out of the urine (glomerulus). Prolonged excessive protein loss in the urine can also lead to damage to the kidneys causing chronic kidney disease. I'm assuming that your kid had a urinalysis to evaluate that creatinine level. It is minimally elevated so it is important to know if the urine is well concentrated in order to know how to interpret this mild elevation. The hard thing is there are also other diseases that can cause protein in the urine that can cause the specific gravity to be low, so a low specific gravity is not specific for kidney disease in all cases. Was the UPC obtained after making sure that there was no infection in the urine with a urine culture? And was it done on a free catch sample from home and verified with repeat evaluation to make sure that it was persistent? If a UPC is persistently elevated then we take the next steps to ruling out disease processes that may be causing it. Typically this starts with a blood pressure, abdominal ultrasound, and some infectious disease testing. As as you can see these cases can be a little bit more challenging then screening lab work can clue us in to. If you have already been down this road of testing then this may all seem familiar to you. Treatment options are based on how severe the protein loss is and what other issues the pet may present with, but typically do include some sort of lower protein diet as you are on, medication to try to change how the kidney is handling the protein as you are on, and other medications as dictated by progression of the case. Something we also often consider adding is fish oil as it is anti-inflammatory. Your family vet should be able to provide you with a dose. I hope this helps!

What else can I do for my dog with protein-losing kidney disease?

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