urinary tract infection

my big buddy (all eighteen pounds of him) is very succeptable to urinary tract infections. he has been to the vet three times in his life with near death crisis and then pulled through. it comes on so quickly. what i'm wondering is he is on medical preventive food which has totally ceased the attacks. now the vet is saying i can take him off the food as he over seven years old now and shouldn't stay on it. i haven't yet i am not comfortable doing this. i have seen my poor buddy so sick to many times and am afraid if i take him of this food he will have another attack which adds up to a 300 dollar bill also. he says older cats usually don't have the attacks but i am uneasy with this. has any one some advice with older cats on special food.. did you change it. buddy is now eight and still healthy and happy. thx

is his regular food dry food? if so, switch to wet please. Look into bee propolis and colloidal silver.

I've had quite a few UTI issues with my cats. Luckily they are all in the past. We were put on Walthams but i was not happy with that at all as i was used to feeding them felidae... So i did a lot of reading and came up with some alternatives to Walthams which did the trick.

Please do check with your vet before trying any of the following suggestions:

1. Liquid cranberry extract.
Make sure you get a sugar free variety. The dosage is 250mg a day for cats.
This should keep the urinary tract acidic.

2. Feed once a day
Feeding your cat once a day allows the body to revert to it's natural state which is acidic. Free feeding means that the cats body never fully reaches the state of acidity that would normally keep UTI infections at bay.

3. UTI Supplements.
There are food supplements that you can buy which also acidify the cats system.
General products for urinary health.
http://www.onlynaturalpet.com/Natura...blems_s/88.htm
Check out the cranberry extracts and the urinary support products.

4. Water.
If you're feeding a dry food your cat may not be getting a lot of water. It might be a good idea to give your cat some wet food and add some water to that as well.


5. PH sticks and home testing.
You can also get a bunch of ph stick or ph papers from your vet OR that site that i have given you above. This allows you to periodically test your cats urine. All you need to do is collect a small amount and use the stick to check to see if your cats urine is acidic enough. Once a week should be fine...

If your worried about HOW on earth to collect a sample it's pretty simple. You just need to wait till your cat goes and insert a small pie tin between it's legs from behind... You may need to bend the pie tin a little so that it's a little narrower then normal. Once they start going they rarely ever stop half way. You won't need much for the ph test anyway.

I can't recall what the ph is supposed to be but i'm sure your vet will be able to tell you that over the phone


Good luck!

thanx so much for the advice. buddy is on a mixture of wet food and dry. he drinks lots of water. will definitely talk to the vet about your suggestions and i am glad to know about testing his urine. thx for the website address also.

Overweight neutered black and white males are more prone to cystitis, so putting him on a diet and shedding a few pounds might also help a lot.

This was my breeders advice: Give him wet food regulary and add some water to it. This way they will lick the water with the food taste.
What I do now is give them wet food in the morning and dry food at night. I use a specific food for Urinary problems and since then Max's pee is clear from struvite and he doent bleed anymore.
Check your cats litter regulary for dark pee or bloody pee. If you see him licking his genitals constantly bring it to the vet as it is a sign of a bladder obstruction that could be fatal ( and very fast ).
Good luck!

G

just wanted to let you know buddy is a large white cat with big black spots now isn't that something that his type is suceptible to this problem. i have two other cats both black and have never had this problem. how odd their coloring makes a diff. the food bud is on is specially for his problem and i do free feed him. will put him on a diet he could stand to lose a couple of pounds. he won't like it but to bad. it will be better for him. thx loads

My poor Scaredy had cystits for a month and having him on Waltham's So really helped him.
I don't know what they put in that food, but Scaredy is doing good and not peeing everywhere anymore. He eats dry Waltham's and whatever I buy in wet-mostly nutro pouches.

My cat has had a few bouts with urinary infections. My vet prescribes Cosequin which is really for joint maintenance but it works on my cat every time. It comes in capsules which you open & sprinkle the powder in the cat food (wet food). I usually start seeing results within 3 days or so. I keep him on it for a couple weeks to make sure it gets in his system. I don't know why it works but who cares? It can't hurt him either since it's good for his joints.

loook for a good senior wet food... look for low magnesium and phosperous... ask the vet to define low..