VetriScience Vetri SAM-e

Sometime around August 2021 Gus, my 16-year old 15-lb dachshund, started guzzling water, peeing all the time and becoming increasingly picky with food. I was filled with dread because in 2018 I lost a pup (Oscar) to renal failure that, at the time, seemed all of a sudden, but after talking to the emergency room vet I realized his symptoms (decreased appetite and increased water consumption/urination) had actually been happening over time. I thought this was “natural, with age” because he was 16. Gus could no longer sleep through the night without having to get up for water/to pee. Also he all but completely stopped eating (first) dog food (then) people food. I must have bought 500 worth of food trying to find something he would eat. The only thing I could get him to eat was dog treats and only certain kinds. I decided to take him ti the vet. I drove 1000 miles to go to my old vet because, thanks to the pandemic?, I couldn’t find a local vet who would see him any time soon and I hadn’t needed to take him to the vet the first 6 months we had been in our new town. I began putting Gus on kidney supplements thinking he was in early renal failure even before we got to the vet. The drops seemed to improve the frequency of his urination slightly. My vet agreed it was likely renal failure or something worse, given my history with Oscar. I let him know that, according to his doggy DNA report, Gus has this health condition that may show liver levels as lower than they really are. So if his liver levels are low, it’s likely they are actually normal. To great relief, Gus’s bloodwork came back “normal.” Confusingly, nothing explained his symptoms. This made me wonder if he was having a liver issue not showing on his blood panel. I quickly researched liver supplements for dogs and I believe this was the first product I found. I read the reviews and ordered it immediately. Since Gus is so small, he only needs half a “treat.” At first I was encouraged because I put it in front of his mouth and he licked it. Then he tried to eat it but it was CRAZY hard. Like crack a tooth hard. Which bored him and he refused to try to eat it. I almost panicked because this supplement seems rather expensive. Then I remembered one reviewer suggesting to grind it down. I did that and put it in liver sausage and he happily ate the liver sausage treat. Then we went to bed. And he slept through the night. For the first night in WEEKS. Literally this supplement cured his increased urination and drinking after one treatment. Or it was fluke, the skeptic in me thought the next morning. I had to continue the treatment to see if it really worked so I made sure to feed him his liver sausage “treat” every night before we went to bed and it seemed that his water issue really was immediately cured. However, he still wasn’t really eating. At this point he was downright refusing dog food and would only sometimes eat people food. Shortly after starting this supplement my mom flew in for a visit. Between my sister and I, she is used to us having old dogs who are picky eaters. So she whipped up some chicken and rice and pumpkin for Gus. I rolled my eyes because I knew he wouldn’t eat it. He doesn’t really like vegetables. Surprisingly, he lapped up a small amount. For about a week my mom made him several very small meals of chicken, rice and pumpkin and I fed Gus with a fork. I was terrified when my mom left that Gus would stop eating because I wasn’t sure I would get the ratios correctly but he kept eating. Then I got him to eat turkey and mashed potatoes (it was Thanksgiving). I was rotating him between turkey and mashed potatoes with a small amount of gravy and turkey and mashed potatoes with pumpkin and he was getting “fatter” (ie normal weight). Then my sister put some dog food out for him and I chastised her because he wasn’t eating dog food. A few hours later, he trundled over to the dog food and ate it! Around this time, Gus began to get resistant to his nightly liver sausage “treat.” He didn’t like that he could taste the supplement in the sausage. I had to grind it up really fine to hide it (I just used a knife to “chop” really finely). Eventually he downright refused the liver sausage “treats” and I had nothing else to hide the supplement in so I stopped them. Miraculously, he didn’t seem to need the supplements anymore. He was back to normal. Normal weight. Eating dog food again in normal amounts. Drinking normal amounts of water. Peeing normally. I stopped the kidney supplement shortly after stopping the liver supplement but I believe the liver supplement cured Gus. So what was wrong with him in the first place? I’m assuming liver toxicity or over-stressed liver. In July he ate an entire NY strip steak and got diarrhea the next day. I thought perhaps too much protein (he loves meat!) taxed his liver. Disclaimer: Obviously there is nothing scientific about my account and I have no idea what was actually wrong with my dog. I was comfortable trying a natural supplement out on Gus because I was willing to try anything to make him feel better. I’m thankful I found this supplement. To me, it was a miracle!

****************************************************************************************************************** UPDATE: BELOW ***************************************************************************************************************** NO ONE SEEMS TO KNOW! There are a lot of kidney support products out there (quite a few just on Amazon) and they answer the question differently; some uniquely and others with some commonalities. I detect two major groups of products: 1) SUPPORT for healthy kidneys up to early stage disease and 2) TREATMENT for early to late stage disease. And no big distinction is drawn between products for humans and those for pets; vets seem to be prescribing or recommending products without much regard for the species of the patient. This product falls under the first category (SUPPORT) and relies mainly on a slew of herbs, Omega-3 fatty acids, and the B-vitamins. Other brands may rely principally on amino acids, probiotics, bovine kidney extracts, different specific herbs, vitamins, or an array of various (sometimes only partially disclosed) ingredients. Which ones are ESSENTIAL? Your guess is as good (no, better) than mine. I have no clue. My rating of this product is not based on its nutritional or clinical value. I am just taking a long shot. Only time, if any thing, will tell whether our currently healthy pets will avoid kidney disease. Our pets accept the product with meals, even lick their food bowl clean, and this particular product is reasonably priced. I combine the reviewed product with a human-grade (& more expensive) formula by Standard Process called RENAFOOD, which relies on amino acids, bovine kidney extracts, one herb (tillandsia), and vitamin A (separate, mirror-image review). As for the second (TREATMENT) category of renal products, there does not seem to be any less variety of (disagreement over) ingredients. For one of our cats (the mom-cat & genetic contributor to our other three) that has failing kidneys our vet prescribed Rx Vitamins' Amino B-Plex, which relies mainly on about a dozen amino acids, potassium, the B-vitamins, and one herb (spirulina) and, of course she prescribed a low protein/low phosphorus renal diet (Royal Canin and Purina). Doesn't sound much different from the "support" formulas, does it? A couple of the more prominent treatment products on Amazon (Azodyl and Epakitin) have their own (mostly undisclosed & expensive) formulations. The prices tend to go up as the condition worsens--huh! Some others I plan to check out with our vet are: Standard Process' Renatrophin PMG, Candioli's RENAL and RENAL ADVANCED powders, and CLINICARE RF liquid. In summary: the reviewed product looked like a good bet and seemed to matchup with Renafood without much duplication. Our non-renal patient cats like the taste of both products and the averaged nominal cost is mid-range (circa $15; less with the human-grade Renafood dosage reduced to 1/20th and the RENAL ESSENTIALS cat tabs dosage by 1/2 for our 10-pound felines). SPECIAL NOTE ON DOSAGES: (Nothing new here, just thought it could benefit repeating). Recommended dosages by supplement marketers are not, with any general assurance, science-based or even regulated. Each marketer is free to specify dosages; an obvious potential conflict of interest situation. One suspects that the marketer sets the dosage as high as the market will bear in order to sell more product. At best, one suspects that the dosages are inflated to cover the extreme end of the useful (and safe?) spectrum (user's condition, sensitivity, body mass, environment, etc.). Sometimes the dosage instructions are incomplete or vague; one suspects for the same profit motive. Occasionally the marketer will provide dosage ranges (body weight ranges, for example) and one is left to infer (or, preferably, not) that the dosage recommended is for the highest weight in the range and also left to do the match for the lower weights in the ranges. Even here one suspects that the dosage still will be inflated after making the inference and doing the math. Marketers could make it easier by giving dosages per smaller units of body weight (say @ 5 or 10 pounds, especially with pet products). This also would make it easier for the buyer to adjust the dosage down further to match the need in less extreme circumstances and make comparisons with other products, but that consumer-friendly ease would conflict, again, with the marketer's profit motive. So, the more specific the dosage the better but even here there probably is a "fudge-factor" and room for experimentation. If the supplement has an equivalent prescription version I use the Rx dosage for the supplement; otherwise, I reduce the supplement dosage down to 1/4 or 1/2 until I get better dosage information. And this reminder about dosages does not even touch the larger question of supplement RELIABILITY (sources, ingredients, additives, contaminants, toxicity, consistency, labeling, procedures, oversight, etc.) which some medical professionals estimate to be less than 30%. Some medical professionals avoid off-the-shelf and online supplements entirely on the basis that reliability cannot be purchased at retail pricepoints. Even with fuller (FDA) regulated drugs, reliability is problematic. This note was not prompted by or directed at the particular product reviewed here. I have reviewed several products where the issue of dosages was encountered and this seemed to be as good a place as any to insert this general cautionary note. I have no reason to suspect that this product is not within the 30% group of superior supplement products. If I get any better data on SUPPORT or TREATMENT options I will edit this review to further refine what is, for kidney health, ESSENTIAL. ****************************************************************************************************************** UPDATE: !!! I HAVE BECOME A DOUBTER !!! Unless a kidney health product (and website/ad) meets the following requirements I have no confidence in its effectiveness: 1) Acknowledge the main nutritional elements for kidneys, namely WATER, EXERCISE, VET-DIET (and, of course, keeping the pets off smoking); 2) Relies on scientific studies (independent, double blind, control group, peer reviewed, replicated--those kinds of things) of exotic foods/ingredients that only small, scattered populations would (if ever) in evolutionary history have access to; 3) omits reference to practices of ancient civilizations; 4) refuses to base conclusions about the effectiveness of the product/ingredients on deductive reasoning (non-inductive reasoning only works with disciplines that have "rules", such as law and theology). I WILL NOT BE PURCHASING THIS PRODUCT AGAIN and will obtain omegas and B-vites in a product without the other unproven ingredients. This review was updated on March 15, 2012, to add more dosage details and on July 1, 2012, to reflect my personal conclusions and evaluative criteria. A side note: I am up to 6 oz of water for our non-CRF cats and up to 4 oz. for our CRF mom-cat (and the vets say give them all they can handle). Hope all this is helpful to others concerned about pet kidney health. ******************************************************************************************************************

I really want everyone to know that this product works wonders for my dog, the down side is that the pill is very difficult for my small dog to swallow, I've tried every thing, from coating the pill with butter, peanut butter. It's very difficult. After about 3 to 4 trys we finally manage to get the pill swallowed. The food coloring of the pill is all over my hands, Yuck. I can't imagine trying this with a cat. Unfortunately I will be purchasing another brand that I can crush and put in his food, so he won't be terrified any more.

Recommended by vet for elevated liver enzymes.

I've seen some improvement of my dog.

Bought these for my 15 year old boy and his appetite is much better he also weighs more since taking these, he eats them just like a treat I break them in half for him. He also doesn’t sleep as much and is back to himself again. I bought these to use as preventative treatment just in case I give them to him once a day. I was skeptical at first but so happy I got them for him. I’m now waiting for his second bottle to come in! I’m so glad he eats them just as he would a treat give it a try it maybe just what your cat needs 🙂

We started using this when we had basically given up all hope for our 14 year old cat. The vet was recommending dialysis and thousands of dollars of intervention. We said no, thankfully. He is not perfect and we can hear him yowling in pain sometimes but this product and some other changes we made to his diet made a huge difference. At least try this before you spend serious money.

These pills keep my cat alive. He was diagnosed with kidney failure almost 2 years ago. They must be crushed into wet food or force fed. My cat is use to the routine and it keeps him alive. A little effort to keep him alive is well worth it to me!