I have an 18-year-old cat, diagnosed with beginnings of CRF a year ago.  He's been on renal diet (up to 3 months ago when he went off it completely), but is generally coping well.
However his joints are now very artritic and he's getting lame in the back hips.  My vet seems to think its all in the course of age and he's doing well still to be with us (in other words isnt really into giving much treatment) 
What are opinions on giving glucosamine etc supplements - are there any I should avoid which worsen CRF?  There's such a bewildering array of products out there I dont know which, if any, to get....
Thanks

Many thanks for that, looks OK for him - here is a brief rundown in answer to your q (+ a bit of history as its always useful to compare notes with other CRF cat carers)
 
"What is he eating now?"  :  You know CRF cats! - anything I can get him to take an interest in at the particular time.  He ate the Waltham Royal Canin for 6 months very greedily, suddenly went off it.  He then ate Eukanuba for 5 days, then went off that too.  Hills KD makes him vomit.  I am UK, so we have different brands I suspect.

He also has bad lung congestion which flares up periodically, at which point getting him to eat is a nightmare as his eyes/nose etc get so gunged up he can't smell.  Many anti-bios seem to depress his whole system - esp Sinulox (which is I think Amoxyllin, then ideal one for lung infections) This congestion gets worse when stressed - which means its a vicious cycle of visits to vets which he totally freaks at - he has to be sedated every time we do a blood sample.

Most of the time now he'll eat Whiskers Senior (tho' often just the jelly!) and when all else fails its cooked organic chicken breast.

Have just spent the last 6 weeks persuading vet to get phosphate binders as I felt the lack of renal diet for 3 months was going to be detremental in that direction.  However reading some of the postings here, I'm less sure - altho' they took a blood sample to test phosphate levels yesterday prior to deciding whether to prescribe the alu-gel.

Previous to that asked vet to give fortekor which he's been on for 2 months - hard to tell if it helps, but he's a spirited cat for his age, enjoys patrolling & marking his territory and (unfortunately as more trips to vet) fights off other neighbourhood toms.

He's been a bit arthritic for a while, but last couple of weeks the back hips are really stiff (as conf'd by vet yesterday) so I started looking around for something to help that - we have a good net purchase site here which had about 10 different preparations, so I was trying to work out if there was any ingredients which would be adverse to his kidneys.

Thanks again
JoMax

what Just me posted ...

www.trixsyn.com my crf girl used this for arthritis and it greatly helped her ...