bladder stones and nutrition

sylorna

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Hi there

One of our cats, Dynah was recently diagnosed with bladder stones.  She is on Royal Cannin S/O dry, because she refused to eat the wet from either Royal Cannin or Hills...down right refused.  She likes the dry and is eating it with occasional grain free wet from Performatrin.  I think it's working.  She's more energetic, seems to be visiting the box less, and seems generally happier.  We'll find out in 2 weeks if this stuff worked or if we need surgery.

The other two cats continue to eat Taste of the Wild as much as possible...and steal some of the S/O occasionally (we have one who is obesessed with it and will ignore her own food to try to get to the S/O, but we limit her accessibility).   They also get the Performatrin wet daily.

The problem is that all 3 cats have a sensitivity to corn, which is of course part of the S/O.  Between Dynah being forced to eat the perscription, and the other cats stealing it, I have a whole pride walking around shaking their heads and scratching their ears.  I did some looking online and it seems to be the age old argument between those who believe in vet food and those who support raw/wet only.  I wish the vet food had better ingredients, but I'm worried that if we change (after the crystals are gone) they'll come back.  I don't ever want to clean up blood in my cats urine again.  She's very picky with wet and would never eat raw.

Just wondering if there were any thoughts on how to deal with this sensitivity down the road.  Once everything gets cleared up I plan on talking with the vet about the food situation, but I wanted to see what you guys said first because I know the vets are fed a bunch of hype from the food companies.
 

raintyger

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Is the Royal Canin supposed to be long-term? From your post it seems as if the food is supposed to dissolving the stones. If so, the prescription food could be meant to be temporary, check with your vet.

I would not feed dry food to a cat that has had UTI issues. The corn is also a concern, as carbs tend to bring the pH up and a carb heavy diet isn't appropriate for a carnivore.

You can try testing your kitty's urine with urine test strips, found in the aquarium section or online. There are certain wet foods like Weruva (low in calories, so make sure you feed enough) and Tiki Cat that are food for cats with UTI tendencies. All cat foods aim for a certain urine pH, you can either find that info out on their website or by calling them. So you could try feeding certain foods and testing the urine. You will have to test several times as urine pH fluctuates widely throughout the day. I would also go back after a month or two and get a lab test.

Methionine can also be added to the food, but you have to be very careful and definitely work with a vet if you go this route. Methionine will acidify the urine, and it is quite often added to commercial cat food in order to achieve the desired urine pH levels. I'm assuming from your above post that your kitty had struvite stones/crystals.
 

Columbine

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Royal canin can be fed long term - its not aggressive enough to be problematic in that way.

Shadow was exactly like Dynah - refused to eat any of the urinary foods except royal canin s/o kibble. He had struvite crystals badly 10 years ago. I didn't know then what I know now about cat nutrition, and so he ended up on a combo of 80% supermarket wet (so not even grain free) and 20% urinary dry. We've never had a recurrence of the problem. He's finally eating grain free wet (an unexpected side effect of taking in Asha :D ) and I'm gradually removing the kibble from his diet altogether - he now gets maybe a mouthful or two a day.

I might be tempted to keep Dynah on a little of the s/o until things have settled down, and then try her on a species appropriate wet or raw diet that she isn't allergic too.

You may have found these already, but just in case you haven't
http://www.thecatsite.com/a/feline-lower-urinary-tract-disease-flutd
http://www.catinfo.org
 
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sylorna

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Thanks. That's actually what I was leaning towards. She's eating the wet/dry combo as it is so I could increase the wet/decrease the dry once she's well.
thanks for the links. I'll check them out
 

yomna magdy

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How long did it take for the struvite crystals to dissolve ? My Hachi has triple phosphate +++ and am dead worried
 
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