Ask the Vet With Dr. Kris: Hearing Loss, Kidney Diet, Vaccine Reaction and More

Welcome to our regular “Ask the Vet With Dr. Kris” segment! Dr. Kris answers as many of your questions as he can, and you can leave new questions for him in a comment.

Dr. Kris Chandroo (DVM, MSc, HBSc) has spent years in the trenches of real-life feline medicine, traveling from living rooms to laundry rooms to help cats live longer, happier lives. He’s turned his clinical know-how into vet-approved, lifesaving playbooks, videos, courses and blogs. He is the founder of 100x Mobile Vet, a mobile veterinary service with several locations in Ontario, Canada.He is the author of  Nine Lives, One Mission: Vet-Approved Home Treatments for Cats with Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD).a comprehensive guide to this common disease in cats. Every page of this book is infused with Dr. Kris’ compassion and determination to give cat parents the tools and the confidence to make the right decisions, always in partnership with their veterinarian.

Cat with spinal cord issues

Our 15-year-old cat has spasms in her hind legs to the point where she can’t walk. Our local believes it is a spinal cord issue with no hope for recovery. We’ve tried meds and acupuncture. Acupuncture seems to help for a short time . Is there anything we can do to remedy this? – Terry Dyksinski

Good for you for exploring acupuncture and doing all you can for your cat. That alone says a lot about your dedication.

To answer your question thoroughly, there’s quite a bit I’d want to understand first. “Spasms” can mean different things in different contexts, so I’d want to know exactly what you’re seeing: how often they occur, and whether we know where in the spinal cord the problem originates. I’d also want a list of medications or treatments that have been tried, and to narrow down the top three possible underlying causes (what we call a “differential diagnosis”). Just as importantly, I’d want to know about your cat’s quality of life right now: her personality, her appetite, and her comfort using the litter box.

The answers to these questions will be nuanced. But hope isn’t.

When my own cat, Zack, developed a neurological condition that affected the use of his hind end, the outcome was uncertain. There were some dicey days when I didn’t know where we’d end up—but I decided to try everything I could. Here’s his story: https://vimeo.com/104575332?share=copy

For your cat, I’d be gathering as much detail as possible to guide the next steps. The road might feel overwhelming now, but each piece of information we collect is one more tool to help us help her.

Good luck,
Dr. Kris

Kidney diet and vaccine reaction

My 2 cats were given annual vaccines of Rabies and FVRCP in November 2023. They were both 3 years old. In December 2023 they were taken in for blood tests. Lucy was lethargic for 3 or 4 months. Lucy had stage 2 kidney failure and Lily had stage 1. Neither cat is related. I tried to treat Lily for this as she apparently was the least affected. But things got worse after each test. All the vets (3) said to keep giving her kidney diet. She was given a number of different drugs and she dropped 3 lbs from being almost 9 lbs. When I finally got Lucy in for a blood test in April 2025, she no longer had kidney failure, but had lost 2 lbs, thanks to the kidney diet, that also destroyed muscle and teeth. Started changing her diet and now she is happier and healthier. But Lily died in May 2025. I learned so much, but all too lately to help her. I have come to the conclusion that the kidney diet is a starvation diet. Better to have food that reduces the Phosphorus and sodium. Still in shock of 2 three old cats coming down with kidney failure. I was feeding them expensive canned food, so it wasn’t their diet. Maybe Lily was more prone to failure as she always drank lots of water even when she was a kitten. But 2 cats at 3, seems like a problem with the vaccines. – Mary Stephenson

I can hear the heartbreak in your story, and I’m so sorry you’ve had to go through this with Lucy and Lily. CKD, especially when it strikes young and otherwise healthy cats, can feel like a rug pull. You did what any caregiver would do: you listened to the professionals, followed their guidance, and kept showing up for your cats, even when the road felt uncertain. I want to acknowledge the effort, the vigilance, and the love you poured into both of them. The emotional whiplash of watching one recover while grieving the other is also very real. You’ve been through the storm, and your hard-earned insights will help other cat parents facing similar battles – so thank you for sharing this story.

I’m with you on the relationship between they type of food and their resulting weight in CKD: it’s the foundation of the BITE strategy I go over in my CKD book. When unrelated cats develop the same illness, I always look for possible toxin exposures. Plants, food recalls, even something new they’ve been around. The truth is, sometimes we never find the cause.

Between 2004–2008, I did see some pretty rough vaccine reactions. It was tied to certain products that aren’t even on the market anymore. Back then, some vets would vaccinate way down on a cat’s leg in case a bad reaction meant surgery. Kind of wild, and not something I ever did. The good news is that vaccines have come a long way since then. The products we have now—at least in my area—are so much better, and I haven’t seen a serious reaction in over ten years.

Thank you for sharing Lucy and Lily’s story. It’s not easy to revisit something so raw, but your experience will make a difference for others who might face the same hard road.

Azodyl

My 15 year old is on Azodyl Caps 100 mg 3 caps a day. What is your experience with this over the counter addative that I sprinkle on her food? I have her on appetite stimulators mirtazapine and cerenia. I also started her on an arthritis injection every month to help her with her arthritis. Any input would be appreciated. Thank You. – Theresa

Tell me your cat has CKD… without telling me your cat has CKD! (You just did. And you’re doing good.) It sounds like you’ve got a solid care team in your corner.

Azodyl is essentially a way to wake up and harness the “Gut–Kidney Axis”. Think of it like opening a side door for toxins to exit so the kidneys don’t have to do all the heavy lifting. We believe this can help slow CKD, especially when it’s part of a bigger, well-thought-out care plan. I talk about that in my BITE strategy. (Ingrid did a lovely review of my book that discusses it here.

You might also consider adding vitamin B12. Again, not just because I wrote about it in Chapter 1, but because it can help with energy, appetite, the gut-kidney axis, and overall quality of life. The Mirtazapine and Cerenia are working in service to one of the most important pillars in CKD management: keeping appetite and body weight steady.

And so far, I’m having good luck with the arthritis injection too.

Oh, and while you’re at it, get yourself a good pet weight scale. Weigh monthly. If your cat’s weight stays the same, you’re right on track. If it creeps down, that’s your signal to tweak and adjust.

Keep at it. You’re doing more right than you know!
Dr. Kris

Cat howling after eating

I have a tuxedo kitty that is 18 years old . For the last couple of years, she does a lot of howling, mostly after she has eaten.. sometimes early in the morning she’ll do more howling, and I’m attributing this to her hearing loss . She is not completely deaf, but has had hearing loss because now when we run the vacuum cleaner in the house, she stays put in her bed on top of the sofa. She gets a high protein diet and no dry food and in the past occasionally raw food for the last 10 years. Her appetite is good and last year she went in for a dental cleaning and had two teeth removed, which allowed her to eat better without pulling the sides of her face. Is there anything else I should be doing or is the howling normal? – Rhonda

Ah, the 18-year-old tuxedo cat!  Part distinguished elder, part late-night lounge singer, and perfectly dressed for the part. The howling you describe is actually a fairly common feature in the “senior cat package”. Sometimes it gets so loud you half expect to see her name on a Vegas marquee: “One Night Only!”. I’ve yet to visit Vegas, so you can tell me if that is true or not.

I agree with you about the hearing loss. Many cats seem to lose their “indoor voice” once the world gets a bit muffled. If they can’t hear themselves properly, they crank the volume up to 11. And if there is something else going on, that volume makes sure you notice.

When a cat of her age is making more noise than usual, I tend to check for:

• Arthritis (even mild stiffness can make them grumble)
• Constipation (it’s not just about being “blocked up” — even small changes in bowel movement frequency can matter)
• Hyperthyroidism (sometimes it’s hard to find)
• High blood pressure (often overlooked)

If all those boxes get ticked as “good” (and I’m assuming there is no vomiting before or after she howls), or the issues are being managed, then we sometimes wander into the territory of feline cognitive decline. That’s the polite way of saying some cats, well… get a little forgetful or mixed up, especially at night. It’s not always a steady decline.  Sometimes it’s just off-and-on “confused karaoke hour on the Vegas strip.”

Do you have a question for Dr. Kris? Leave it in a comment and he’ll answer it in our next column.

Purrs of Wisdom is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. This means that if you decide to purchase through any of our links, we get a small commission. We only spread the word about products and services we’ve either used or would use ourselves.