Help - how can I balance multiple issues?

I'm stuck and don't know where to turn. I've recently moved here and don't have a vet that I really trust yet. There's nothing wrong with the one we saw, but I've only been there once and just don't have a great relationship there yet.

Here's my predicament:

Toby is 7, DSH

As a kitten he had bloody diarrhea which we felt was inflammatory. Did a bunch of elimination diets and ended up with the knowledge that duck, venison, lamb, salmon, rice, potato, (and maybe chicken) seemed to be the best. I've been feeding him the EVO 95% meat venison or duck (wet) and Medi-cal Gastro (orange bag = duck/potato) for a long time. That combo seems to work well, but he has always had small amount of blood in his stool for his whole life (but no diarrhea, good weight gain etc). So that's what I've stuck with.

Now we went for dental cleaning and pre-anesthesia bloodwork showed some mild kidney failure - resolved with IV fluids.

Urinalysis showed alkaline urine with some oxalate crystals, but no stones or obstruction.

And I'm stuck. I don't know if he needs a renal diet or a urinary diet or just elimination of his dry food and a pure-canned diet.

I'm a physician for humans and if there's anything I know it's that a lot of "knowledge" out there is controversial or not based on research. The reading I'm doing right now about cat diets suggests the same thing is true for veterinary medicine.

The vet we saw gave us a urinary diet. One that's full of pork, wheat, corn, by-products... all things I don't think are necessarily good for him and I'm pretty sure will make his bowels flare.

Does anyone know of an expert I can seek advice from?? A specialist that would do telephone consultations??

How would you feel about feeding a raw diet? I switched to raw rather than feed an rx diet to my cat that is prone to struvite crystals. The raw also "cured" the chronic diarrhea of another of my cats.

Take at look at http://catinfo.org. The site owner is a vet and does phone consults for people who feed raw to CRF kitties.

I'm not totally opposed. I think the main issue would be with free feeding.... I have to be able to leave food out for periods of time and I think that can be dangerous with raw can't it?

I'm figuring that at the least I'll have to switch him to almost 100% wet food (I'll still need to leave dry out on the few days a month that I'm out of the house for an extended period).

I just don't feel like I should be switching to a canned food that increases carbohydrates, grains and by-products. Especially since the fact he has crystals/alkaline urine isn't necessarily the explanation for the renal issue.

There is a site where you can pay for vet assistance. I did it once, it was only $15 or so, and they were super helpful. You can upload video and/or sound files to help them. I did it as a mini consultation on if something that was going on, was something I should have been concerned about or not. I'm on my mobile @ the moment, but I will try to locate the site and post for you.

hs4816 said:

I just don't feel like I should be switching to a canned food that increases carbohydrates, grains and by-products. Especially since the fact he has crystals/alkaline urine isn't necessarily the explanation for the renal issue.

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There are plenty of wet foods out there that don't contain grains or by-products and have very low carbs. You can also get an automatic feeder for when you are gone.

Yes, but the problem is that I apparently need to find a hypoallergenic + urinary + renal diet...

Although the more reading I do, the less I'm convinced that any prescription diet is going to make a difference

hs4816 said:

Yes, but the problem is that I apparently need to find a hypoallergenic + urinary + renal diet...
Although the more reading I do, the less I'm convinced that any prescription diet is going to make a difference

Click to expand...

I know how you feel. My cat seems to be allergic to Everything but fish and I also don't want soy, corn or dyes in his food, AND I want it to be high protein. *brain explodes*
Anyways, when we started on the 'allergies journey' so-to-speak, my vet recommended that I switch him to Hills z/d Low Allergen dry or something like that, and I looked at a list he had in the book he had given me about allergies and asked if i could try the IAMS version instead because it had much better ingredients and he told me he didn't know anything about it, and I'd have to ask the owner if she/he would order it (and of course they wouldn't..), so I asked about canned which was $2.50+ per can and I said 'I'll think about it...'
SO... I did everything myself and tried all the LID diets until I came upon Simply Nourish LID Tuna and Potatoes. And guess what? No itching! For the first time in weeks he went a day without itching. So now I have the choice of any food that has fish only (though I'm currently limiting him to: Simply Nourish, Before Grain Salmon and Natural Balance Salmon and Pea). I'm also ordering these: http://www.2docspethealth.com/blue-label-formulas/allergy-defense-90-capsules.html which were recommended by another member here.

As for urinary issues, it depends on what type of crystals he had. Some cats only need a wet-only diet to achieve a crystal free life, some Do need a urinary diet. I think I would start at the basics though and feed LID canned Only and see how he does. You'd be surprised at how many issues disappear when you get rid of dry.

I know you were given the catinfo.org link, but did you read the Urinary Health section? It's very informative. :nod: