another urinary blockage

So about a month ago, my cat Sam (whom I adopted in August) started having difficulty urinating and began hiding under the bed. We took him to urgent care (it was 1 am) and we found out he had a blockage. They told us he had no crystals and started him on antibiotics while they awaited the urine culture.

I brought him home and switched him to an all wet diet- Weruva (not the fish flavors). He was doing great: his coat was shinier, he had more energy, and he began losing weight (something we had been working on since adoption). Plus, he was peeing extremely well.

Two days ago, he started peeing on the floor. He began vomiting and then his urine changed to blood. I took him to the vet and he had large crystals and the urinalysis showed an extremely high level of bacteria. We are still awaiting the culture, but it is extremely perplexing that after a round of antibiotics, he shows up with bacteria in his urine! Our vet is having us change him to Royal Canin Urinary SO wet and dry food.

I am just hoping for thoughts as I am extremely discouraged. I was really hoping the change to Weruva would prevent further urinary blockages. I am also sad that we are switching foods as I really liked the grain free and no by product aspect of Weruva- plus he LOVED it! Has anyone had experience with the Royal Canin urinary food?

Little Sam is still at the vet clinic being monitored. He has a catheter that is draining bloody urine and getting lots of fluids.

aww...so sorry. I have only dealt with 2 uti's with Mikki...but antibiotics cleared up the first one... about a month later she was in and out of the litterbox again with no results... we were going to take her to the vet when hubby got off work.. I did a crazy thing and put apple cider vinegar on the scruff of her neck (I read WAY too much online) but funny thing... she went pee an hour later and never had anymore symptoms of the UTI. Not saying you should try it...but I was pretty thrilled and shocked.

I hope you find a solution for your baby.

I have read about mixing apple cider vinegar in food, but was worried he would just turn his nose up to it (he is very picky with wet food). I have not read anything about it topically. Do you happen to have any links?? That seems like it is worth a shot!

I'll look to see where I read it.... I tried it diluted in Mikki's food as well but she didn't take to it. I don't blame her!

The link to the website is: http://www.earthclinic.com/pets/acv_for_cats5.html but I copied and pasted one post that talks about the scruff. What I've read about it is just make sure if you ever give your cat some internally, make sure it's always diluted as it's so strong in acid. Obviously if a kitty is in need of a vet, that's the first option...and we were planning on doing that...but it was pretty amazing how after giving it to Mikki, she went to the bathroom with no problems.. I continued for a few days... she never had the symptoms since. I noticed while reading some put just a teeny bit in wet food and their kitties tolerate it...


Posted by Rathmussen (Montreal, Canada) on 06/03/2008
[YEA] I took the tip from someone on this site to put ACV on the scruff of my cat to help with a respiratory infection, and not only did it help her condition a bit, her whole coat has become magically lush. I don't know if it was spread everywhere from us petting her or brushing her with a baby brush, or if it was absorbed through her skin and spread from there, but wow. She was always a scruffy runt, but now she's downright regal looking!

Urinary crystals only develop when the urine is too acidic or not acidic enough. My cats urinary ph goes up to 8.0 when on some foods. Normal is 6.0. He has to be on special food.

Methionine is a urinary acidifier found in meat. If a pet food company adds to much or too little, crystals develop.

I would estimate 90 percent of pet food companies do not add enough methionine. I switched my cat to higher protein food from by nature and he blocked within one month of the change.

You can prevent urinary issues by getting a urinalysis done anytime you change cat foods. For example, my cats urinary ph is 8.0 on nature's variety. Crystals are guaranteed to develop at that ph.

Natural balance his ph was 8.0, by nature was 7.5, innova is 6.6.

With Hills c/d his ph is 6.0. Purina urinary his ph was 6.4. That is closer to ideal.

The cat food companies have a major problem regarding how much methionine they add. For instance one company only has .06 percent methionine vs. Another companies 1.4 percent. This is the reason so many cats have urinary problems.

I think the amount of methionine added is crucial and needs to be made public or listed on the bag. Until that happens there are going to be a lot of cats put down with urinary blockages.

It is such a common problem! The blame lies solely with the pet food companies who refuse to publicize their methionine levels or have levels too low. I once tried to email all the companies. Only a few companies were forthcoming.

I'm so annoyed with all the cat nutrition websites recommending grain free high protein diets as the solution to urinary problems.

The theory is that grain free should be higher in methionine but that depends what type of meat is used... rabbit would differ from chicken vs Turkey... byproducts would differ from chicken breasts which would differ from thighs.... every company has a unique product with different methionine levels.

To make things worse, some of the natural foods do not supplement additional methionine at all. Halo for instance does not add methionine... so some of these natural foods are worse offenders at causing urinary crystals than the ones with grain.

I feed Evo with a methionine supplement to keep the urinary ph at the proper level. I check urinary ph on a weekly basis for my cat with urinary issues. I was lucky. He is toilet trained so I have no problems catching a urine sample.

Janet K said:

So about a month ago, my cat Sam (whom I adopted in August) started having difficulty urinating and began hiding under the bed. We took him to urgent care (it was 1 am) and we found out he had a blockage. They told us he had no crystals and started him on antibiotics while they awaited the urine culture.

I brought him home and switched him to an all wet diet- Weruva (not the fish flavors). He was doing great: his coat was shinier, he had more energy, and he began losing weight (something we had been working on since adoption). Plus, he was peeing extremely well.

Two days ago, he started peeing on the floor. He began vomiting and then his urine changed to blood. I took him to the vet and he had large crystals and the urinalysis showed an extremely high level of bacteria. We are still awaiting the culture, but it is extremely perplexing that after a round of antibiotics, he shows up with bacteria in his urine! Our vet is having us change him to Royal Canin Urinary SO wet and dry food.

I am just hoping for thoughts as I am extremely discouraged. I was really hoping the change to Weruva would prevent further urinary blockages. I am also sad that we are switching foods as I really liked the grain free and no by product aspect of Weruva- plus he LOVED it! Has anyone had experience with the Royal Canin urinary food?

Little Sam is still at the vet clinic being monitored. He has a catheter that is draining bloody urine and getting lots of fluids.

Click to expand...

What was (is) his urine pH? This is very important. And what type of crystals were they? This is also very important information before any advice should be provided.

What was cultured? Is the infection E coli? If so, please talk to the vet about using D-mannose. This is a very, very effective non-antibiotic solution. When symptoms appear, this is the treatment:

http://www.vetinfo.com/d-mannose-for-cats.html

Otherwise the dose should be discussed with the vet, but the recommendation of mine, after searching the literature on it, was 1/4 teaspoon, once a day. I pulse it two weeks on, two weeks off, in our cat Spooky that was developing chronic UTIs.

Here is some research and further info:

http://chriskresser.com/treat-and-prevent-utis-without-drugs

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6346629

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC551422/

Klebsiella (in study above with D-mannose) is also a primary culprit in UTIs: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC88898/

Sarah Ann said:

Urinary crystals only develop when the urine is too acidic or not acidic enough. My cats urinary ph goes up to 8.0 when on some foods. Normal is 6.0. He has to be on special food.

Click to expand...

This is incorrect. Only struvite crystals are impacted by urine pH. There are many other types, the most common non-struvite being calcium oxalate, which form in any pH environment. Food-based solutions and methionine address urine pH and struvite crystals only. And from my understanding of the research published, the ideal pH is 6.25 - 6.5.

Though there are many factors I have read that since food companies started adding dl-methionine to food the percentage of cases that are calcium oxalate have risen from 2% of cases to 42% of cases.  There is no way of knowing if the addition of dl-methionine is the cause but there are many that believe it is.  

Why would ph not contribute to the development of oxalate crystals?

We do know that the urine of cats that form calcium oxalate stones tends to be highly acidic. (When a liquid is acidic, its pH is under 7) During the last 30 years, pet food companies formulated their diets to produce more acidic cat urine. That was in an attempt to prevent struvite urinary tract problems. However, acidic urine is conducive to oxalate stone formation. (ref) Some veterinarians believe that that accounts for the increased frequency of oxalate stones that we now see. Most cats that initially come to veterinarians with oxalate stone problems have urine pH of 6.5 or less.
http://www.2ndchance.info/oxalatecat.html

Ph contributes to both types of stones. Hypercalcemia is a risk factor for oxalate stones too.

For struvite crystals high levels of magnesium and phosphorus is a risk as well as urinary ph.

Both crystals form when the urine is oversaturated with minerals... keeping your cat drinking or feeding wet food helps prevent crystals from precipitating as the urine is more dilute.

I know hills did a study linking magnesium percentage with struvite formation.

For my own cat with struvite crystals, a low magnesium food is not enough... he has to have low magnesium and the right urinary ph to prevent relapses.

Any time my cats urinary ph gets too high he relapses...

Sorry if I did not specify this earlier but my first post was on struvite crystals... calcium oxalate take the opposite approach to treatment with the goal being less acidic, more dilute urine. Plus you want a food lower in methionine and low in calcium and vitamin d.

Some cats are genetically more prone to forming crystals.

Little Sam came home last night! I am waking up every two hours to assess his urine formation (he has been going small, frequent amounts, but he is going!)

His urine pH was 8.5 with struvite crystals and we are awaiting the culture results still. What is odd is that three weeks ago when this happened the first time, he had no crystals and his culture came back negative for bacteria so we finished the round of antibiotics initially started and thought he would be fine.

I am glad he is home and hope the switch to Royal Canin Urinary SO will be enough to keep him from developing crystals again. I am also ordering him a water fountain to encourage him to drink more water.

When you went in for the 1st blockage, did the Dr do an x ray? I know it's not always done because sometimes crystals are hard to see on x ray, but my vet did for my Rocky and you could totally see it. His bladder was so full of crystals the space looked gray & fuzzy, rather than black. It's hard to understand how he didn't have crystals at 1st & then had big ones 3 weeks later.

Also, did the vet give him any pain medicine or muscle relaxant? Those 2 helped my boy the most. He's been blocked twice and had near misses 2 more times & he hasn't received antibiotics.

They did an xray and ultrasound the first time, he came home on pain med, antibiotics and antispasmodics the first time as well as this time. My current vet and I also agree that it is super perplexing that three weeks later, he has stones and a ton of bacteria in his urine when he was clean three weeks ago. His first blockage was supposedly from stress and not stones or infection... very strange.

Sarah Ann said:

Why would ph not contribute to the development of oxalate crystals?

We do know that the urine of cats that form calcium oxalate stones tends to be highly acidic. (When a liquid is acidic, its pH is under 7) During the last 30 years, pet food companies formulated their diets to produce more acidic cat urine. That was in an attempt to prevent struvite urinary tract problems. However, acidic urine is conducive to oxalate stone formation. (ref) Some veterinarians believe that that accounts for the increased frequency of oxalate stones that we now see. Most cats that initially come to veterinarians with oxalate stone problems have urine pH of 6.5 or less.
http://www.2ndchance.info/oxalatecat.html

Ph contributes to both types of stones. Hypercalcemia is a risk factor for oxalate stones too.

For struvite crystals high levels of magnesium and phosphorus is a risk as well as urinary ph.

Both crystals form when the urine is oversaturated with minerals... keeping your cat drinking or feeding wet food helps prevent crystals from precipitating as the urine is more dilute.

I know hills did a study linking magnesium percentage with struvite formation.

For my own cat with struvite crystals, a low magnesium food is not enough... he has to have low magnesium and the right urinary ph to prevent relapses.

Any time my cats urinary ph gets too high he relapses...

Click to expand...

sarah ann http://www.2ndchance.info/oxalate-dogRSSWalthamStenvenson2003.pdf :lol3: I wanted to read the link you posted (also to 2ndchance), but I'm getting an "Error 404" message

Janet K said:

They did an xray and ultrasound the first time, he came home on pain med, antibiotics and antispasmodics the first time as well as this time. My current vet and I also agree that it is super perplexing that three weeks later, he has stones and a ton of bacteria in his urine when he was clean three weeks ago. His first blockage was supposedly from stress and not stones or infection... very strange.

Click to expand...

Wow, that is strange! I hope the diet you chose works for your baby. :rub:

Here you go:
http://www.2ndchance.info/oxalatecat.htm

See if that works. If not try googling 2nd chance info. I love that website. Excellent information on all sorts of cat health issues.

I agree, love that site!

That works, thanks!

I do wish everyone would put dates on their articles, as the information about oxalates and pH in the two articles would seem contradictory. One is the Waltham piece, but he doesn't provide a reference for the oxalates and acidic pH comment in this one, and we don't know how current the information is (or isn't).

So just an update- Sam's culture came back and he has non heamolytic strep in his urine (no idea where that came from since he is an indoor only child). Anyway, it is pretty much resistant to almost anything and we have just now found an antibiotic to treat it. He is doing much better and is starting the new antibiotic tomorrow.

However, when I cam home I noticed his left eye was red and slightly swollen. He is keeping it shut and has some clear discharge. Could this be due to the medications?? I am taking him into the vet tomorrow just to be sure.