Pippin has Crystals!

Oy I'm back with Pippin and his problems. We had a good 6 months of good health and now he has a new issue.
Yesterday morning my roommate woke me up telling me that Pippin was hunched over and straining and he was trickling pee on the carpet. I got up to check on him and he was still hunched over and peeing. I pressed on his tummy a bit and he peed more, then went to the litter box a few minutes later and had a nice big pee. He never pees on the carpet so I was concerned.
I called the vet and asked for clavamox for him since I thought he had a UTI. They asked me to come in so this morning I took him in and we just got home.
Last night he was ok-ish. He wasn't running back and forth to the box which is typical when he's having urinary trouble. He was a little sleepier and more lethargic, but not even that much and he did not feel hot. He was eating and drinking normally.
I took him in and during his initial exam the vet tech pushed on his bladder and he started peeing on the table. They were able to get a good sample straight from the source, so to speak! Some blood came out near the end of that.
Well he's full of crystals. He has Calcium oxylate and streuvite crystals!!!! (
He's not blocked, which is good, but crystals are not. The vet recommended a diet change so I brought home Royal Canin SO. He has been eating crappy food because my roommate and I have 5 cats and so we feed a cheaper food. They've been eating purina cat chow and meow mix indoor food.
I got them to make a copy of the urinalysis and here is what it says:
Sediment: calcium oxylate + struvite +++
RBC's + WBC's
Spec. Grav: >1.035
Urobilinogen: Norm
Glucose: Norm
Ketone: Norm
Bilirubin: Neg
Protein: ++
Nitrite: Neg
Leukocytes: ++
Blood: +++
pH: 7

I don't really understand any of that, but I know that this is a common problem so I'm hoping some of you can advise me.
For those of you with crystal kittys, what do you feed? What exacerbates the situation?
Pippin was in this past summer with constipation which was followed by a UTI and then more constipation. His urinalysis then was clean.

I mentioned to the vet about having a Perineal Urethrostomy to basically turn his penis into a vagina and keep him from getting blocked, but the vet said we should try food change and see if he clears up the crystals. If he gets blocked, the vet said we could go ahead and do the PU at that time. I'd rather do the PU sooner rather than later because I think the risks associated with it are more palatable then a constantly reblocking kitty. What do you all think? Has anyone has a PU done? What were the pros and cons of it?

Pippin ALSO has a heart murmur, which could be a problem during a surgery, so for that reason I'm trying him on the food first too.
Has anyone had ANY luck with a grocery store or less expensive brand urinary health food? If I could find one that was less expensive AND it would also not affect the other kitties negatively, I'd be interested in getting that for the feeder and then feeding pippin twice a day separately with the prescription food.

I'm very worried about my little boy. He never has small issues, only large expensive ones. He seems to be feeling ok and also ate some of the new food, which is nice. I was afraid he'd turn his nose up at it.

Devlyn

I'm sorry to hear about your Pippin. Neutered males are prone to crystals and a wet food diet helps keep crystals under control from what I gather.

The other thing you have already proven to yourself is that sometimes paying less for food costs more down the road in vet bills. Royal Canin is apparently a good food and I don't believe it's terribly expensive. Naturally we have to feed what we can afford, but usually if you feed a better quality food, they actually eat less which in the long term offsets the extra cost so that it works out to be about the same.

I changed to Merrick's wet food about a year ago as I had been feeding an all dry diet and I do believe our kitties are healthier and doing better for the change. In Canada (where I live at least) Merrick's is very expensive so with all your kitties that may not be a good choice for you.

I'm sorry that Pippin is having trouble. How old is Pippin?

The PU surgery can be a lifesaver for a male that's been obstructed more than once. The upside is they'll likely never get "blocked" again. The downside is that it can make them more prone to bacterial urinary infections. True bacterial infections ("UTIs") are otherwise pretty rare in young cats. They are more common in humans, dogs, and older cats. The real problem in younger otherwise healthy cats is usually crystals.

Yosemite is right. The best thing for a crystal prone kitty is a canned food diet. Raw is just as beneficial, if you and your vet are OK with it. Yosemite is also right about the cost benefits of a higher quality food. I can speak from experience on that too, as my cats ate only about 1/3 as much Rx dry food as they did Cat Chow.

The biggest factors in crystal prone kitties are water intake (best accomplished with wet food) and stress.

I hope Pippin gets to feeling better soon.

I'm right there with you! I've considered switching to different foods in the past and even considered doing the raw diet. I tried out a better quality dry food but the kitties hated it. We have a new petsmart in the area though, so I know there are probably a wider variety of options there that I haven't had access to before. I own 3 of the cats and my roommate owns two and they all eat together in our blended household.
I'm not sure if I should try to free feed the cheaper food and then give pippin his special diet seperately in two meals. Ideally, he'll get addicted to the new food and wait to eat his "meals" instead of nibbling all day, but I don't think that's likely lol!
Thanks for your reply!!

Devlyn

Originally Posted by Yosemite

I'm sorry to hear about your Pippin. Neutered males are prone to crystals and a wet food diet helps keep crystals under control from what I gather.

The other thing you have already proven to yourself is that sometimes paying less for food costs more down the road in vet bills. Royal Canin is apparently a good food and I don't believe it's terribly expensive. Naturally we have to feed what we can afford, but usually if you feed a better quality food, they actually eat less which in the long term offsets the extra cost so that it works out to be about the same.

I changed to Merrick's wet food about a year ago as I had been feeding an all dry diet and I do believe our kitties are healthier and doing better for the change. In Canada (where I live at least) Merrick's is very expensive so with all your kitties that may not be a good choice for you.

Click to expand...

Since we got our water fountain, Pippin's been drinking a lot more water. I had to do that because of his constipation issues, and I was feeding a lot more wet food before the roomy moved in. My 3 would share a can once or twice a day, then eat dry food the rest of the time. With the five, one can really doesn't go far at all lol!
Does anyone know if feeding all the kits the rx food will affect them adversely?
Oh! Pippin is 4.5 years.

Devlyn

Originally Posted by Devlyn

Since we got our water fountain, Pippin's been drinking a lot more water. I had to do that because of his constipation issues, and I was feeding a lot more wet food before the roomy moved in. My 3 would share a can once or twice a day, then eat dry food the rest of the time. With the five, one can really doesn't go far at all lol!
Does anyone know if feeding all the kits the rx food will affect them adversely?
Oh! Pippin is 4.5 years.

Devlyn

Click to expand...

It would be best to ask your vet about feeding the Rx food to all of the cats.

Personally, my vet gave me the OK to do that. But it depends on the food and the health status of all the cats involved.

The Royal Canin S/O food is one of the better choices (of all Rx urinary formulas) for feeding to otherwise healthy cats. But I do suggest talking to your vet about it.

I can relate about the canned food not going far between a group of cats. I've switched my group of 8 to all canned...cha-ching $$$. But in a very short time, I already see many improvements in all of them. Should save me on the vet bills in the long run.

I sadly have a lot of expirience with these issues. I've had 7 cats, now 6 and 3 of them had UTI at some point and 3 had FLUTD. Last fall Chester was blocked and kept reblocking so we had to have the PU done. Since his full recovery, no problems. I did a ton of research on the proceedure and was able to ask my vet all the right questions ahead of time. If the surgery becomes necessary, try to have laser surgery. According to my vet it resulted in less blood loss and made the entire proceedure easier to do because visibility was not impaired. We got a kitten in December and the little terror has been stressing them out. Chester had loose stools and diarrhea then I saw him burying freshly deposited urine on one of their beds. I got him in immediately that morning. With his history, we're not talking any chances. He had bloodwork and urinalysis and everything was fine. Doc thinks it's stress and someone could be urine marking.

The doctor strongly urged me to feed him CD for the rest of his life, but after looking at the ingredients and from previous expirience, I refuse. Over the past 2 years I have been educating myself on pet foods. I went from Iams and Science Diet to Nutro Natural Choice to Wellness. After Chester's illness I began to incorporate wet food. Now they eat Wellness Core and Innova Evo dry, Wellness, Merrick and Evo wet. I split two 5.5oz cans between them in the mornings. At lunch they get about 1 1/2-2 cups dry.

I began researching the effects of a high protein grain free diet (Core & Evo) and found some very interesting things. It used to be believed that a high protein diet was hard on the kidneys. That has been proven untrue in scientific studies. A healthy cat should have no problems. I have two big boys 16lbs and 14lbs that the vets comment on. High protein diets have been shown to allow them to lose weight while maintaining lean muscle mass (difficult on the fiber filled diet formulas). I also found some info that suggests that the high protein diet may help cats with diabetes and has been shown to reduce the ph of the urine. I wanted to be prepared to discuss this with my vet as my gut was screaming at me not to feed them crap.

Based on my research and personal expirience I truely believe that once the problem is cleared up, a high quality premium food should suffice. I have also looked at supplements that acidify the urine to help prevent future problems in my cats that have recurring issues. Make sure to ask your vet about Uroeze. It is a medication that acidifies the urine and thereby dissolves the crystals. In 2002 when Kali had FLUTD the vet did not even mention medication and our whole household suffered through restricted feedings so he could eat the CD. Chester was prescribed some last fall. My vet says they use it as a last resort or in difficult cases. I was adamant about not feeding prescription junk food to all of my cats which is my only option. Since your kitty has had some recurring issues, ask your vet if they know of a reliable holistic veterinarian. Holistic vets specialize in alternative treatments. They might be able to help you in preventing future problems.

RC SO is a good RX for UTI issues...


I would recommend canned or raw( yes raw only with a vets help) or homemade after a vet talk ....

UTI s appeared in my house no crystals ( RX is best till crystals are gone)... here FISH is the culprit and had to go from 25% of diet to about 5% to control it ..

Purina one and Nutro max are both certified Uti formulas and arent expensive ... if you have to feed dry discuss these with your vet

Originally Posted by Devlyn

I got them to make a copy of the urinalysis and here is what it says:
Sediment: calcium oxylate + struvite +++
RBC's + WBC's
Spec. Grav: >1.035
Urobilinogen: Norm
Glucose: Norm
Ketone: Norm
Bilirubin: Neg
Protein: ++
Nitrite: Neg
Leukocytes: ++
Blood: +++
pH: 7
(SNIP)
I don't really understand any of that, but I know that this is a common problem so I'm hoping some of you can advise me.
For those of you with crystal kittys, what do you feed? What exacerbates the situation?

Click to expand...

Basically, your kitty is plugged up with high levels of struvite crystals and some calcium oxalate crystals. The other urinalysis parameters include the cellular components found in urine and markers of inflammation etc.

Feeding Royal Canin Urinary SO is a good way to prevent the formation of struvite and calcium oxalate crystals, and I'm currently using it as a maintenance food for my cat who had a bout of struvite crystals in November. I'm a firm believer in RX food for FLUTD kitties, and a number of vets I've consulted with recommend that my boy stays on RX for the rest of his life. It is a bit more expensive than store-brand foods, however, it only ends up being about a dollar a day for my cat Pico who's consuming the dry and wet formulations. He hasn't had any reoccurence and is doing great.

Thanks so much for your lengthy reply. There's a lot of great info in here!!
I will have to ask the vet about the medications when I'm in on Monday. Pippin is NOT eating the Royal Canin and his behavior is a little weird today, so I isolated him in my bedroom (with Morris for company lol) and the rx food, fresh water and a fresh litter box. If he's still acting weird tomorrow, I may take him in. He's still using the litter box but I found some clear vomit this morning. That might have been him or one of the other kits. He has been having issues with the clavamox pills now and fights me a lot when I give them to him. I think they are hard on his tummy, frankly.
The vet doesn't have any other food options for me in his office right now, so I'm going to try to get him to eat it this weekend, and if that doesn't work, I'll probably pick up some nutro max roast chicken. I'm trying the nutro because I was feeding the kitten formula to Smeagol and the other cats LOVED it. I'm hoping he'll love this too, and at least it will be better than the Meow Mix.
A new RX food is being released next month that treats both kinds of crystals and ph issues, so I will try that probably if Pippin's still having crystal issues.
Some kitties just seem to be more delicate than others and Pippin's one of them.

Thanks!

Dev

Originally Posted by mskitty666

I sadly have a lot of expirience with these issues. I've had 7 cats, now 6 and 3 of them had UTI at some point and 3 had FLUTD. Last fall Chester was blocked and kept reblocking so we had to have the PU done. Since his full recovery, no problems. I did a ton of research on the proceedure and was able to ask my vet all the right questions ahead of time. If the surgery becomes necessary, try to have laser surgery. According to my vet it resulted in less blood loss and made the entire proceedure easier to do because visibility was not impaired. We got a kitten in December and the little terror has been stressing them out. Chester had loose stools and diarrhea then I saw him burying freshly deposited urine on one of their beds. I got him in immediately that morning. With his history, we're not talking any chances. He had bloodwork and urinalysis and everything was fine. Doc thinks it's stress and someone could be urine marking.

The doctor strongly urged me to feed him CD for the rest of his life, but after looking at the ingredients and from previous expirience, I refuse. Over the past 2 years I have been educating myself on pet foods. I went from Iams and Science Diet to Nutro Natural Choice to Wellness. After Chester's illness I began to incorporate wet food. Now they eat Wellness Core and Innova Evo dry, Wellness, Merrick and Evo wet. I split two 5.5oz cans between them in the mornings. At lunch they get about 1 1/2-2 cups dry.

I began researching the effects of a high protein grain free diet (Core & Evo) and found some very interesting things. It used to be believed that a high protein diet was hard on the kidneys. That has been proven untrue in scientific studies. A healthy cat should have no problems. I have two big boys 16lbs and 14lbs that the vets comment on. High protein diets have been shown to allow them to lose weight while maintaining lean muscle mass (difficult on the fiber filled diet formulas). I also found some info that suggests that the high protein diet may help cats with diabetes and has been shown to reduce the ph of the urine. I wanted to be prepared to discuss this with my vet as my gut was screaming at me not to feed them crap.

Based on my research and personal expirience I truely believe that once the problem is cleared up, a high quality premium food should suffice. I have also looked at supplements that acidify the urine to help prevent future problems in my cats that have recurring issues. Make sure to ask your vet about Uroeze. It is a medication that acidifies the urine and thereby dissolves the crystals. In 2002 when Kali had FLUTD the vet did not even mention medication and our whole household suffered through restricted feedings so he could eat the CD. Chester was prescribed some last fall. My vet says they use it as a last resort or in difficult cases. I was adamant about not feeding prescription junk food to all of my cats which is my only option. Since your kitty has had some recurring issues, ask your vet if they know of a reliable holistic veterinarian. Holistic vets specialize in alternative treatments. They might be able to help you in preventing future problems.

Click to expand...

Originally Posted by sharky

RC SO is a good RX for UTI issues...


I would recommend canned or raw( yes raw only with a vets help) or homemade after a vet talk ....

UTI s appeared in my house no crystals ( RX is best till crystals are gone)... here FISH is the culprit and had to go from 25% of diet to about 5% to control it ..

Purina one and Nutro max are both certified Uti formulas and arent expensive ... if you have to feed dry discuss these with your vet

Click to expand...

I asked the vet about nutro max and he said he wouldn't feed him that because of the crystals, but that it was up to me. He wants Pippin on an RX formula, but he understands that if the cat won't eat it, he won't eat it. I'm going to try to enforce the RX food this weekend and return it on Monday if he won't touch it. All the other cats happily eat it, just Pippin (who needs it) refuses. LOL! What a stinker he is!
I'm worried about him again today because he's acting weird so he's segregated so I can figure out if he's throwing up and using the litter box.

Originally Posted by Carm

Basically, your kitty is plugged up with high levels of struvite crystals and some calcium oxalate crystals. The other urinalysis parameters include the cellular components found in urine and markers of inflammation etc.

Feeding Royal Canin Urinary SO is a good way to prevent the formation of struvite and calcium oxalate crystals, and I'm currently using it as a maintenance food for my cat who had a bout of struvite crystals in November. I'm a firm believer in RX food for FLUTD kitties, and a number of vets I've consulted with recommend that my boy stays on RX for the rest of his life. It is a bit more expensive than store-brand foods, however, it only ends up being about a dollar a day for my cat Pico who's consuming the dry and wet formulations. He hasn't had any reoccurence and is doing great.

Click to expand...

Thanks for your input! I have heard only good things about Royal Canin and I'm glad it's working for your kitty!!
Pippin is refusing to eat it, which is typical stinker behavior from him. He's very spoiled and dramatic. lol!
Simple, on the other hand, gobbles it up like it's his precious, as do the other cats in the house. The only one who doesn't like it is Pippin, of course lol.
He's back into the vet on Monday (or earlier if necessary) to do another urinalysis. I doubt if there will be much or any improvement with the crystals since he won't eat the food, but we will see. I'll ask for meds if he's still being a butthead.

Devlyn

How can he have both crystals at the same time?
My cat is doing well with carpon. I don't have a link, search carpon dr. belfield. He is very nice will answer emails and talk on the phone. tell him gail sent you.

I wish I knew!!! I just know he has them. I've never had a cat with crystals before, so the whole diet thing is new to me.
Thanks for the advice about carpon, I'll look it up!

Dev

Originally Posted by Devlyn

A new RX food is being released next month that treats both kinds of crystals and ph issues, so I will try that probably if Pippin's still having crystal issues.

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I'm sorry to hear that Pippin is having trouble and doesn't appreciate the Rx food too much. They always want what they can't have, don't they?

The RC Urinary SO is actually formulated to prevent both types of crystals. The new Hills C/D "Multicare" coming out soon is made to target both types of crystals also. That might be the one you're thinking of. He might find the Hills food more palatable. My cats liked it. I still think wet is the best, but I know it's tough w/multiple cats and finnicky cats. Good luck.

Originally Posted by beandip

I'm sorry to hear that Pippin is having trouble and doesn't appreciate the Rx food too much. They always want what they can't have, don't they?

The RC Urinary SO is actually formulated to prevent both types of crystals. The new Hills C/D "Multicare" coming out soon is made to target both types of crystals also. That might be the one you're thinking of. He might find the Hills food more palatable. My cats liked it. I still think wet is the best, but I know it's tough w/multiple cats and finnicky cats.

Good luck.

Click to expand...

Yes, the Hills is the one he's talking about. I'm actually all out of wet food so I need to get up to the store for more. I've been feeding them the meow mix pouches which actually seem to have decent ingredients. I tried putting them on a better dry food (the only decent one at the grocery store) and they all hated it. LOL! They told me it tasted like straw.
Anyways, I think I might as well pick up a small bag of the nutro max kitty to see if they like it at all. Since that's what I'm hoping to switch them all to eventually, I might as well see if pippin will eat it. Maybe I can do a mix of nutro, rc and his junk food and see if he eats any of the good stuff. Maybe it will confuse his little furry mind enough.
We shall see!

Dev

That's exactly what I was going to do this morning when I realized I didn't have any wet food left! Doh!
I appreciate the advice though, because I really just want him to eat this stuff, and get better, so I can stop stressing!!! lol
I know meomies aren't supposed to have favorites, but I do, and Pippin is him.
I love the other kitties, and, in fact, ALL kitties that I meet, but he's my baby!
That's what makes this so hard. I hope your kitty is doing better!

Devlyn

Sorry you Pippin is being so difficult. I know exactly what that's like. You mentioned trouble getting the Clavamox in him. Next time ask for the liquid. I find it much easier to administer liquids than pills. The Uroeze comes in tablets or powder. Are you trying to feed him the canned or dry formula? My Chester wouldn't touch the wet stuff so the vet and I decided to give him the dry formula and he started eating.

Due to both types of crystals being present your RX choices are limited ... I am sending please get well vibes to Pippin