Iams Original Chicken Formula for UTI in male cat?

We had been feeding Gabriel the Royal Canin SO formula for awhile until it got to be too expensive. We switched to Purina One Urinary Tract formula and so far it has been working well (2 months going strong). Only problem is that Chicken is the third ingredient, and it's sandwiched between corn, wheat, and more corn. Someone had mentioned to me that Iams makes an Original Chicken formula that supposedly promotes healthy urinary pH balance. I looked at the magnesium content, and it was 0.10%, a little higher than I'd like (PurOne is 0.08%) but the ingredients are substantially better...Chicken and Chicken Meal are in the first five ingredients, Chicken being the first, and Chicken Meal being the fifth.

So has anyone had luck feeding Iams Original Formula to a UTI-prone and diagnosed cat with good luck? I'm hoping we can switch back to Iams as my wife has always had good luck feeding it and she's partial to it. If we had the choice we'd feed more premium foods but we are having a hard enough time separating the 4Health Active Cat formula for our two other cats and keeping Gabe on his UTI formula, without him sneaking bites here and there of the other stuff (silly boy)!

Should we stick with what works for awhile and then switch over or should we just stay with what we are on now?

(btw, I've heard the whole holistic speal for awhile, truth is we were going grain-free and that's when his UTI's started!)

So the problem here I can see is the budget right? But keeping him UT safe?
Because really really...... the best thing for him would be having him on an all wet diet.... Is he eating any wet at all? Even a little?

He is very sensitive to fish. We can feed him wet as long as it doesn't have fish, because as we (and our vet) figured out, it triggers his UTI almost immediately.

We haven't been feeding wet because we haven't taken the time to look for it. but we have a pet fountain that he is drinking from frequently, all of our cats are drinking from it quite often. it was one of our best investments...

zerosoma33 said:

He is very sensitive to fish. We can feed him wet as long as it doesn't have fish, because as we (and our vet) figured out, it triggers his UTI almost immediately.

We haven't been feeding wet because we haven't taken the time to look for it. but we have a pet fountain that he is drinking from frequently, all of our cats are drinking from it quite often. it was one of our best investments...

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yeah.... that's excellent :bigthumb: Know though, that the majority of their water comes from food..... even with a fountain, a cat on dry will get about 1/2 of the water a cat on all wet will get
If you have the resources, a wet diet will be by far the best bet for his health. There is a list of UTI safe diets, by mineral contents..... that can help..... there are plenty of foods without fish....
If not, I would not taken him out of what is working, my opinion only - especially putting him on a regular formula, as oppose of a urinary one..... :nod:

I second the motion to switch over to wet food. Kibble is the main reason cats get urinary tract issues in the first place (amongst many other health problems). There's some really good info at this link on why moisture *in the diet* is the best prevention: http://catinfo.org/?link=urinarytracthealth

Sugarcatmom said:

I second the motion to switch over to wet food. Kibble is the main reason cats get urinary tract issues in the first place (amongst many other health problems). There's some really good info at this link on why moisture *in the diet* is the best prevention: http://catinfo.org/?link=urinarytracthealth

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Not to thwart what you and several other people are saying, but we had our cats on an 80/20 wet/dry ratio for their food. We would feed them nothing but wet food 5 out of the 7 days of the week. He still developed a UTI. We have switched to entirely dry food and he is doing fine on the UTI dry food we feed him now. I do want to incorporate some wet food again soon but I just wanted to add that in there.

So...basically I am getting that it wouldn't benefit us to switch. Perhaps I should just stick with what works for now?

zerosoma33 said:

Not to thwart what you and several other people are saying, but we had our cats on an 80/20 wet/dry ratio for their food. We would feed them nothing but wet food 5 out of the 7 days of the week. He still developed a UTI. We have switched to entirely dry food and he is doing fine on the UTI dry food we feed him now. I do want to incorporate some wet food again soon but I just wanted to add that in there.

So...basically I am getting that it wouldn't benefit us to switch. Perhaps I should just stick with what works for now?

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I would not change diets if this is working for this, especially to a regular dry one. I would to a 100% wet, but if that is not going to be the case, then what you are saying is correct - I would not change what is working - nope :nod:

Carolina said:

I would not change diets if this is working for this, especially to a regular dry one. I would to a 100% wet, but if that is not going to be the case, then what you are saying is correct - I would not change what is working - nope

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Well - I was officially informed today by my wife that Gabe actually does NOT like his Purina One food. He chokes it down but only because it's what available. So we picked up the orange bag of Iams and I managed to find some cheap Friskies Special Diet UTI formula wet food. I don't normally like to buy grocery store cat foods (I'm sure most of you don't either) but this seems to have been our most affordable choice. He does like the friskies and I'm sure he will like the Iams but we will mix it in gradually and observe the results.

thank you everybody for your replies.

Most commercial foods claim to "promote a healthy urinary pH balance" (if it's not on the bag, the manufacturer will tell you if you call). Is there anything special about Iams that would make it more appropriate for a UTI-prone cat than, say 4Health or Chicken Soup?