Sterile Cystitis again, overweight, need to do a diet overhaul.

Hi all,

It seems my 7 yo male cat, Oscar,  gets a sterile cystitis once a year. He has never been blocked though has had struvite crystals in his urine. This time it started over the weekend. I noticed that the pee clumps were smaller and he was visiting the litter box more frequently friday night. His pee clumps are easily recognized from Kattie's as her are slightly larger as she has early kidney compromise. Anyways, he was passing urine but smaller amounts. so I started adding even more water than I normally do to his canned food. I also added pure d mannose powder to his canned food and started up on his dl methionine tablets to acidify his urine. I checked the ph on Sunday and it was up at 8 again. He had been down to 6.5 so not sure what caused the increase. Since he was still safely passing urine though in small amounts, I gave him a bolus of SQ fluids, since I have bags of fluids as part of Katties therapy. Well this morning it looks like his clumps are nearly back to normal size and he is a happy camper. I would have rushed him to the vet but this seems to always happen and since he doesn't have bacteria, they really don't do much other than a ua and fluids. So I didn't freak and did what we've done in the past an it seems to be working. I will continue to add the d mannose and dl methionine and recheck ph in a week. I may give another dose of fluids tonight and tomorrow am just to be sure he's peeing normally again consistantly.

Now here is his history, Oscar is a neutered male 7 yo kitty. He gets these utis pretty regularly  now. He is also overweight which we have been battling at 20 pounds, this also predisposes him to utis i bet. He is on a diet dry food which has done absolutely nothing. He also gets canned albeit he only likes friskies and fancy feast but its still canned. He can no longer steal Kattie's food as I got feeders that are triggered by each cats microchip so Oscar can only eat his food and Kattie only eats hers. Even monitoring his food he's still fat. I am thinking switching to all canned may be the key. mind you I have tried to switch to raw in the past with a big fat fail. All canned might be doable considering he already eats canned  though it isn't his fave, and now that he can't steal Katties food, he eats everything put in front of him.

I am going to wait until this sterile cystitis has passed before doing anything, but we are going to do this. I am going to get a baby scale to monitor his weight as I am scared to death of hepatic lipidosis. I will probably gradually decrease the dry food and increase the canned and go from there. Also can I add water to his dry in the mean time? It won't be sitting out for hours to grow bacteria as he eats his meals within about 15 minutes.

The vet said she wants to see him at 13-14 pounds as he is still a big boned cat, so that is our goal. Now how much canned would he need a day  as a total canned diet? We will probably start with the Friskies and Fancy feast as that is what he loves canned food wise and then maybe convert to better quality from there. He does like to eat the occasional Wellness minced varieties. He's not a fan of pate, though we are working on that. Adding the water to the pate seems to help. He gets a 1/4 cup of water morning and night added to each meal. 

Here is his current diet:

He gets fed AM and PM

1/4 cup Natural Balance Fat Cats

1/4 can of Friskies or 1/2 can of Fancy feast and I add 1/4 cup of water or Honest kitchen bone broth to canned food.

Obviously this is still too much as he hasn't lost any weight even though this is all he eats. I am going to drop an 1/8 of a cup of dry but should I increase the amount of canned? and by how much. 

I am excited and nervous to get serious about this diet change. I think it is overdue as he is also at high risk for diabetes as well. 

As an aside, I would love to get Kattie off dry food as well since she has early kidney compromise. However she won't eat enough canned to keep weight on. She lost a lot of weight and allowing her access to graze dry food, has gotten her back to her proper weight. Right now we are managing her with glandular and Chinese herbal supplements and occasional fluids. Her kidney values are back to normal and she is doing great.

Any suggestions and insight would be appreciated greatly!

Thanks!

Becky

Has the vet given you an ideal weight for your kitty?  Generally the safe level for avoiding hepatic lipidosis is 15 calories per pound of ideal weight.  Generally going to all wet will help, dry food has more carbs and calories.  Usually the pate type foods have fewer calories and carbs then the other types of food.  You can usually find the calorie count on the food's web site.  

I agree completely with Denice.  I would drop the dry food completely, and make sure you are only feeding the Pate style Friskies and the CLASSIC Fancy Feasts.   You said he's not a fan of the pates....that could be a problem as the others are high in carbs, and high in carbs means they are less filling...less filling means just like what it sounds like...he might get hungry on less calories, and he needs to take in less calories to lose weight.  

Now, there ARE other foods that are very high in protein, very low in carbs (which is GREAT on both of these accounts), and pretty low in calories (also good because he can eat more).  They are much more expensive than what you are feeding now however.  Things like Weruva.  If you can afford the expense, why not check out their website.  You can order a variety pack of Weruva on websites like Chewy.com, or possibly get them sourced local to you.