Raw Food Diet, Day 40- A Change of Heart: Good News After All

brother takes the computer once again:

Well, I'm exhausted from all of the research I've been doing with my human about the effect of the raw diet on BUN and creatinine levels. My human wasn't particularly thrilled with the feedback from the vet. She found the whole situation to be somewhat peculiar. The vet asked her why she wanted a blood test, and she told him that I needed another check after having a "dramatic change in diet." Well... he never asked her what that change was! In fact, he didn't even seem interested. Strange, no? So she went online to her favorite K9Nutrition group and asked if anyone else had seen elevated BUN on a raw diet. Guess what? They did! They mentioned something that she didn't even think of: that I should have been fasted before my test. That doesn't sound like a good idea whatsoever to me, but I guess my RMB meal that morning could have had a huge effect on my BUN since there were only 4 hours between feasting and testing. But overall things are looking up, and the more research we do the more normal my numbers appear. In fact, tests have shown that dogs on a raw diet normally run higher numbers and it's quite okay -- as long as other kidney tests come back within the healthy range. (Creatinine, BUN and urine specific gravity are the major 3 in kidney function testing.) We were able to find this K9Nutrition archive which explains the situation, and which links to this article by Antech diagnostics. Everything seems to point to elevated BUN numbers, normal creatinine, and normal USG. Hooray! Looks like I may actually be better off than I was before. I couldn't have hoped for better news. Yet another example of why the raw diet is full of magical feasting-awesomeness.

Boy have I come a long way from my pre-feasting days. (I couldn't resist including a picture of those hard-livin', shelter times below... please don't laugh at my Elvis 'do.) Life is good when you're as spoiled as Stan and I are.

I think I'm done with my napping now, and I'm going to go thrash my St. Paddy's day toy from grandma until it's dinner time.

Happy feasting!