Kidney Disease in Cats
- Your Ultimate Guide

Your cat’s kidneys help him or her stay healthy by managing your cat’s blood pressure, stimulating red blood cell production, removing waste from the blood, and making important hormones. Kidney disease hinders these important functions and can negatively impact your cat’s wellbeing. Cat kidney disease takes form in two distinct ways:

Acute Renal Failure

This sudden onset kidney disease can happen very suddenly to cats of all ages as a result of poisons, shock, or trauma.

Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD)

This slow progression towards kidney failure is found in middle-aged and senior cats, as their kidney function deteriorates over time.

The acute and chronic versions of kidney disease have drastically different causes, but both are the end result of damage to and dysfunction of the nephrons—the tiny tubes that comprise the kidney’s filtering system.

In Acute Renal Failure, the nephron damage happens very quickly due to ingestion of a poison or chemical, heart failure, bacterial infection, etc. The remaining healthy nephrons are unable to compensate for the sudden loss of function, which precipitates total kidney failure.

With Chronic Kidney Disease, on the other hand, the damage builds up slowly, until too many nephrons stop working and the kidneys lose function altogether. This is often the result of slowly developing conditions, such as an autoimmune disorder—in which a cat’s body attacks its own healthy organs— or kidney cysts—which slowly grow to destroy the tissue.