My 14 and a half year old collie mix has just been diagnosed with both kidney failure and pancreatitis.

I have four pages of blood test result all together, so I'm only going to type in the parts that showed something wrong.

On the test that found kidney failure:

ALKP 365 U/L (reference range 23-212)

ALT 602 U/L (ref. 10-100)

BUN/UREA 82 mg/dL (ref. 7-27)

CHOL >520 mg/dL (ref. 110-320)

CREA 2.8 mg/dL (ref. 0.5-1.8)

LIPA 2043 U/L (ref. 200-1800)


And for the test that showed pancreatitis:

Pancreatic Lipase Immunoreactivity Fasting >1000 ug/L (control range 0-200)

TLI Fasting 46.1 ug/L (control range 5.7-45.2)


My first question is, can you tell me what "CHOL" and "ALT" stand for? My vet explained the results over the phone but it was before I got them on paper and I had trouble understanding. I don't remember anything about either of those, and now that I have them in front of me I see they are the highest above normal of everything on the test. Whatever "CHOL" is, is there anything I can do to make it go lower?

My second question is, based on these results, do you think we are more likely looking at two unrelated conditions, kidney failure caused by pancreatitis, or pancreatitis caused by kidney failure? My vet was unsure what to think on that.

I would also appreciate any advice you can give on diet, herbal therapies, et cetera. Unfortunately all the books I have on pet care recommend almost opposite diets for kidney failure than they do for pancreatitis, so with her having both conditions I don't know what to do. I can't seem to find any resources that talk about both combined. I will probably post again at some time with more specific dietary questions, but I don't want to ask too many questions at once, so will end it here for now.

Thank you for your time.

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