Louie had unexpected surgery - advice for preventing stones?

My poor Louie just can't catch a break! In mid 2013 he had a bad case of pancreatitis, and recently had a pretty bad UTI. I took him (and a few others) to the vet on Tuesday to have him checked out. They told me what I already knew - he indeed has a UTI, but then they told me something I DIDN'T know - he had a large stone in his bladder that needed to be removed NOW!

Before they put him through the trauma of surgery, they even cleaned and re-calibrated (or whatever it is they do) the x-ray machine to make sure what they saw was indeed a stone. There was a very clear stone the size of a large BB in his bladder, poor guy! In all my many, MANY years of cats owning me, I've never once had a kitty that needed surgery (other than spay/neuter). I was scared to death! Fortunately, when I brought him in Wednesday morning, the vet tech was the same lady that cat sits for me, and their 'relief' vet was a trained surgeon, so at least I knew Louie would be in good hands. I said my goodbyes to him and cried on the way home.

He's been at the vet 2 days now, recuperating. They said the surgery went well, no complications and the results of the lab tests on the stone should be back in a few weeks. I let him stay there because I didn't want him to be in pain and have my other 7 kitties annoy or try to play with him. But I bring him home this afternoon!

I understand there are 2 types of stones: a struvite stone would be the result of the UTI infection, and not likely to reoccur, especially if I manage the acidity in his urine. The other stone, calcium based I think, IS likely to reoccur, so I hope that's not what he had.

Has anyone had this experience? How did your kitty do after surgery? Did anything work post-surgery that either helped them heal, or prevented more stones from forming? The vet mentioned he should eat the special dietary food for this type of thing, but I have 7 other cats, and separating Louie's food from theirs is as likely as me finally getting them to use the vacuum!

**Also, side note. I've noticed a lot of threads recently about pancreatitis (three of my kitties have had it in the last year). It seems to be happening a lot lately. When I talked to the surgeon about Louie's previous bout with it, he said that he sees it a lot. They didn't used to diagnose it because, frankly, they didn't know it existed. The science 10 years ago didn't test for it, so their illnesses were probably blamed on something else. Now the science has caught up, there are tests specifically for pancreatits, so the vets are seeing more cases of it. There were probably just as many cases 10 years ago as they are now, but nobody knew about them until recently.

It is important to identify the type of stone because the treatment will be determined by the type. The two most common are struvite which you mentioned and calcium oxalate. Both can reoccur, so managing the condition is important. Struvite is usually formed in urine pH that is too alkaline so as you mentioned, it is important to monitor and adjust urine pH as needed if this is the case. Usually prescription food is used for this, but the active ingredient in these foods is methionine, and if you are willing to monitor his pH at home, you can add methionine to his food yourself. Meat is high in methionine so that's another way to ensure that more methionine is in his diet.

Calcium oxalate stones usually form in urine pH that is too acidic which is one reason that urine pH must be monitored if adding methionine to ensure that urine pH does not get too acidic. These types of stones cannot be dissolved by diet alone and require surgery to remove.

For all cases of urinary tract and bladder issues, getting enough water into him to keep his system flushed out is critical. More info here written by a vet: http://www.catinfo.org/?link=urinarytracthealth

Thank you vball91, for the information. I do know that in order to properly treat/prevent stones, we need to know what type it is. I will just keep everything status quo until the tests come back. If it's a struvite stone, a friend of mine recommended Carpon (http://www.doggiefood.com/orthomolecular-specialties-carpon-dog-cat-supplement-100-ct-bottle.html) be added to his diet. She has two male cats, one who has been to the ER twice for blockages from stones. She's been giving him Carpon for 3 years, and he hasn't had a blockage since.

I need to do something that all 8 of my cats can either benefit from, or at least something that will help Louie and not hurt the others. As many of you with many cats know, separating at feeding time, special food for one cat only or monitoring every mouthful of food for every cat is close to impossible. If he needed the prescription food, all the cats would have to have it, and I don't want to hurt them. Plus, I can't afford that - those RX foods are expensive!!

I free-feed 3 different kinds of dry food (all grain free, high quality) and they get wet food (same high quality) every night. I've seen some here that say feeding dry food is the worst thing to do for your cat - is that true?

I don't know enough about the Carpon product to comment on it. I would be more comfortable using methionine as the acidifier given its tried and true background if it does turn out to be struvite.

I would not want to feed the other cats a prescription food either. There are things you can do in multi-cat households to feed different foods. It may take some time to get them all on scheduled feedings, but it can be done. http://www.thecatsite.com/a/transitioning-free-fed-kibble-kitties-to-timed-meals