Having trouble with new prescription food for my cat.

So he can handle the C/D dry, just not the Wet?  There are actually OTHER brands of prescription wet foods, like Royal Canin.  I'm guessing your Vet only carries Hills though.  Even so, he could write you a prescription for Royal Canin, and you could get the food at another Vet who sells the Royal Canin.  You just need to find a Vet who sells it.  I think you can contact Royal Canin and they can tell you which Vets sell it. 

If your furbaby actually blocked, I would think you would want to monitor his PH at home if you start him up on a non-prescription food like Fancy Feast Classics. You can do that using regular Human PH test strips. 

Just FYI, here's a pretty lengthy thread on food for a cat with struvite crystals:  http://www.thecatsite.com/t/302645/food-help-please

• @mrsgreenjeens
•  
• Hello, and thank you for writing. I didn't know that I could test his PH at home.. My vet told me I can come in to the office and pick up some kind of a cat liter they have where it doesn't absorb the urine. Then I'd bring it back and they'd send it to the lab. It would be a lot less expensive for me if I was able to check at home. So thank you for that information.  How would I do that?

My vet did mention they have a brand of Royal Canin, but didn't put my cat on that or even mention me trying it for whatever reason. So I could ask him about that. He just put him on the c/d. The dry food of the c/d seems to agree with him well. But any of the moist food from the c/d, he throws up. I was looking into Blue. Do you know if that one is better than the Fancy Feast?

Thank you for the information you gave me and I will check out that link as well. 

To test his PH at  home, you would need to catch his urine on the strip, so if you could just pass the strip under him in the box, that would work.  Then compare it to the chart , which I'm guess in on the side of the bottle that holds the strips. 

I don't know about the Blue being better than Fancy Feast, because honestly, I would never have dreamed that FF was ok.  It' pretty high in Phosphorus, and I thought that needed to be low 

@mrsgreenjeens

Thank you. I also just found a video on youtube about how to use the special liter they give you, or I think can be ordered online. It is non-absorbant so the urine just sits there like a puddle so it can easily be collected. So glad I found a video on how to do it. So whether I do it at home or to bring to the vet, now I will know what to do. Thanks for telling me about the PH strips. I didn't know that I could do that. 

I wouldn't think that Fancy Feast was okay either. I know he said only the classic one.  I had asked him if I should go back to the Friskies. He said that I  should try the FF Classic if I can't use the c/d for him. But I think I will call him and ask about the Royal Canin first. 

I really appreciate your advice. Thanks so much. 

I would try a different brand. My cats have fared well on prescription food from purina. Royal canin tends to be pretty good as well. Check and see if they offer the food for your cats needs.

imo, this is the best site for cat nutrition and what to feed cats with specific health problems. these "prescription" diets are a marketing ploy to make you think these foods are better and have been tested thoroughly which is BS. there is nothing in them that requires a prescription. but the vet who writes for this site explains it very well...

www.catinfo.org

one of the best things you can do is try to get your cat to drink more water. pet fountains that make the water move around often entice cats to drink more. you can also try mixing a little tuna water or broth with the water. add extra water to the wet food also. there is alot of detailed info on that site for urinary problems..

ellag said:

 
imo, this is the best site for cat nutrition and what to feed cats with specific health problems. these "prescription" diets are a marketing ploy to make you think these foods are better and have been tested thoroughly which is BS. there is nothing in them that requires a prescription. but the vet who writes for this site explains it very well...

www.catinfo.org

one of the best things you can do is try to get your cat to drink more water. pet fountains that make the water move around often entice cats to drink more. you can also try mixing a little tuna water or broth with the water. add extra water to the wet food also. there is alot of detailed info on that site for urinary problems..

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SOME of them may be prescription because they should not be fed long term (as in the case of Hills S/D).  I can't speak for the others, only know that they DO work.  You are correct though that IF you can get your cat to drink enough water and eat a wet food with the right proportions of nutrients, including low phosphorus if they are prone to crystals, then they shouldn't need a prescription food. Although I have heard of some cats needing an additive or two that is actually found in corn!  (to prevent crystals) (can't think of the name of the additive right now )

The Fancy Feast may well be fine if it gets your cat eating all wet food and not dry.  It's not true in every case but many cats appear to have crystals at least partly because of lacking moisture in their diet.

My most recent experience is that we adopted cats who had a history of crystals and who came home eating the Hills c/d.  We did keep them eating that for a little while at first, cans only!  But we've slowly moved them to other canned food and then added some freeze-dried food that gets rehydrated with a lot of water.  They eat one meal a day of that and one meal a day of canned food.  None of it is specifically chosen for crystals or other urinary problems, but in over a year and a half they have not had any signs of problems.

Anyway, it may be worth it to keep trying the veterinary diets first to make sure the problem goes away before switching to other foods.  But either way, try to get him eating the canned varieties and try to cut out or at least cut down on the dry.

I have bought some veterinary diets at Petsmart without a specific prescription.  As I recall, I was able to do it with Royal Canin brand but not with Hills.  This was also a few years ago.  But at the Petsmart nearest me they have it on a shelf which is near the vet clinic that's in the store but not inside it.  You can grab items from that shelf and take it to the regular cashier line.  A helpful cashier tried different cans for me and let me buy the ones that the computer did not restrict to needing a prescription card as they termed it.

Purina also makes veterinary diets as does Iams. Iams and Royal Canin now have the same parent company (Mars Petcare) so maybe the Iams diets will not last, not sure.  But I don't think they've been discontinued yet.  I don't recall Petsmart carrying anything other than Hills and Royal Canin though.

Often the vet diets are also available online from regular online pet food stores like Chewy.com and many others.  The sites will tell you if a prescription from the vet is truly required or not.  With that sick cat a couple years ago I ordered Iams Maximum Calorie once (couldn't find it locally at all) from an online store and did not need anything special from the vet.

Personally my longer-term goal would be to have the cat not be on a special veterinary diet though.  And it's pretty good to see a vet recommend a normal food from a regular store.  Many people think that vets prefer to suggest the special diets to make extra money.

thank you to everyone who has been writing to me about this. i appreciate all of the advice. what over the counter cat foods are low in phosphorus? 

My cat has always been a wet food cat. i have always fed him friskies. i did give him sometimes some dry food at night to munch on. also by purina. but he always ate wet food. he also does like to drink water. but i have been wanting to get hi one of those cat drinking fountains to get him to drink more of it. 

i have heard that the crystals can be caused by stress. anyone know about how stress can cause crystals? I had thought at first it was stress because where i live, a few months back when this all started, they were doing extremely oud construction and my cat was very nervous with that. i stayed with him and made sure he was ok and felt safe throughout it. but he was stil somewhat bothered by all the noise. he had ended up getting a UTI. Something he never had before. I took him to the vet and they gave him antibiotics for it and it did go away. But about a week or two later, I noticed he was having problems urinating and took him back to the vet and they determined he had crystals. they did a test on the crystals and found out they were from diet. So that confused me because I thought it might have been dues to the stress and the UTI. 

He can't hold down the c/d wet, but can hold down the c/d dry and seems to like it very much. I give him the wet food in the day and a little c/d dry at night. right now i am using friskies and fancy feast for the wet food until i can figure out what to keep him on. The vet assistant said the c/d dry is ok for him. so i was thinking that because it is prescription dry it would be ok. does anyone know if that is accurate? the vet said wet food is better but if he is having trouble with the food to keep the dry for now and try the fancy feast also. the wet cans. but if it has high phosphorus as some here have said, that does concern me. so if anyone knows of any cans with low phosphorus, please let me know. thanks so  much to everyone who is writing to me about this. 

has anyone here tried soulistic cat food? 

http://www.petco.com/product/110264/Soulistic-Adult-Canned-Cat-Food-in-Gravy.aspx?CoreCat=SBB

here are the nutrition info fot 2 of the ones i was thinking of trying. does it sound good for a cat in my cats situation?

Guaranteed Analysis:

Soulistic Good Karma Chicken Dinner Adult Canned Cat Food in Gravy
5.5 oz.; Good Karma Chicken; Case of 8
Crude Protein (min) 10%, Crude Fat (min) 1.1%, Crude Fiber (max) 0.5%, Moisture (max) 84%, Ash (max) 2.0%, Calcium (max) 0.25%, Phosphorus (max) 0.25%, Magnesium (max) 0.03%, Taurine (min) 0.05%.

Soulistic Harvest Sunrise Chicken & Pumpkin Dinner Adult Canned Cat Food in Gravy
5.5 oz.; Case of 8
Crude Protein (min) 8.0%, Crude Fat (min) 1.1%, Crude Fiber (max) 0.5%, Moisture (max) 84%, Ash (max) 2.0%, Calcium (max) 0.25%, Phosphorus (max) 0.25%, Magnesium (max) 0.03%, Taurine (min) 0.05%.

i also found this link which might be helpful

http://www.catinfo.org/docs/FoodChartPhosphorus9-22-12.pdf