help with UTI

Henry is my 1 year old male, neutered Bengal mix. He had a UTI about a month ago, we did the antibiotics, I started him on wet food as the biggest part of his diet, give him cranberry supplements, and bought a kitty water fountain to stimulate all my cats drinking. Well, he has another UTI. We're back on 2 weeks of antibiotics, and the vet gave me the Hill's prescription diet for UTI's, but...I hate the ingredients. I have never fed low quality foods to my animals, but if he has to be on it, I will feed it to him, but if there are other alternatives, Iw ould like to find them. Does anyone else have UTI problems with their cats, and what do you do? What should I look for as far as ingredients for better wet foods to feed him. I also bought the Nature's Variety Raw medallions, so we're going to see how he likes those. I don't see how he won't. Any suggestions from anyone?

Talk to your vet... with Kandie utis came from fish ....

sometimes RX s are good to stabalize...

what dry and wet is he eating??

does he have crystals? I use carpon of dr. belfield fame to control that, but you said you are giving cranberry supplements. How much? 500 mg daily of carpon(which is a component of cranberry) does the trick for my guy.

I have no idea what the amount is of the cranberry. It's powder form, and came with a scooper and the directions say to give one scoop 2x a day for 1-3 weeks, and then one scoop 2x per week as maintenance. What is the carpon stuff you use??

He eats California Natural dry and Natural Balance wet, and I haven't started using the Natures Variety Prairie raw medallions yet, but he'll get some tomorro morning afterthey thaw. I am ok with feeding the RX as a stabilizer, but I don't want to feed it forever, because the ingredients are crap. By products and corn are not up my alley on what I feed my animals. I know the ash/magnesium (I think) are supposed to be low, I just need to know how low so I can compare ingredients in other foods.

I know the food is gross, but it really does work. My cats have been on the RX diets for a few years now for crystals and UTI and they have not had any problems at all. To me it is worth it to keep them healthy and have to eat a less quality food. I know how you feel though because I was feeding them the best food with no by products etc and I really am not too happy about the RX food but it really works.

General UTI ... ash should likely be under 7%.. ph aim should be about 6.5 ... Mag .025( i like .022) for canned and .085 for dry

Struvite crystal s are about the same as above...

calcium oxalate are best dealt with Rx

ASK your VET PROIR to giving the raw ...

http://www.belfield.com/products7.html#carpon

Hope this is a link

Originally Posted by fosterkitty

Does anyone else have UTI problems with their cats, and what do you do? What should I look for as far as ingredients for better wet foods to feed him. I also bought the Nature's Variety Raw medallions, so we're going to see how he likes those. I don't see how he won't. Any suggestions from anyone?

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You have my sympathy . I have been through a 12 month battle with the UTI's in my Beandip. He was in and out of the vet probably 10 times in '05/'06. It wasn't fun, and I still worry every day. I will say that I feel the prescription food helped. It wasn't enough by itself, but it helped.

My advice to you is...

If you let him have ANY dry food, let it be the prescription food. Wet would be much better. But I definitely would not let him have his old dry or any other dry, except the Rx. Your overall chances of success are best on the Rx wet. I wish I had worked harder to eliminate dry food from our household in the beginning, when Beandip's problems first started. I feel we would have been much better off in that case.

One question, what was his pH?

I will tell you this. After 4 straight "good" months (following those 12 bad months), I put Beandip on the Nature's Variety raw. I honestly feel I rushed it a bit, but I think it's going to work out OK. BUT, I'm having to give him 3 pills every day in order to baby him through this transition. Stress is a factor for a lot of these cats, and a food change - even to something they seem to enjoy...is still very stressful for them. It's not easy. Please work with your vet on this .

Wow. ...I can go on all day about this issue.

Originally Posted by beandip

Wow. ...I can go on all day about this issue.

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Haha, me too. I actually have ph test strips at home and I check Zoey & Saki's pee regularly to make sure its normal. Wet food is definately best for UTI/crystal issues. Unfortunately Saki is not all that fond of wet food. He does drink tons of water though which is good and he urinates nice and frequently, which I think has a lot to do with the urinary SO food he's on. Frequent urination so that crystals dont have time to develop.