I have a problem that even the vet can't figure out, and I DO trust this vet. I have one cat who had a severe blockage about a year ago. He had crystals and bladder stones, and after surgery, 2 weeks hospitalized (he also had a torn urethra), several months of antibiotics, and a diet change, he's been perfectly fine. One huge reason why I trust this vet is that they went above and beyond to help this cat out. When they first opened him up for surgery, they said it was the worst case of stones and an infection that they had ever seen. He also had urine in his abdomen, which indicated the urethra tear. They gave him less than a 1% chance of survival, and asked if I wanted him to be euthanized while he was already under anesthesia. I said no because I wanted to talk to my husband first, and in the 2 hours that it took to get in touch with my husband, the vet had called back telling me she had called a specialist and had looked up several case studies, and he now had about a 20% chance of survival. From there - the good news just increased. So basically, I know this vet will go out of her way to do whatever it takes to save an animal, and based on that, I'm completely confident that she knows what she is doing, and will admit when she doesn't (she admitted that there was nothing she could personally do for my cat when she had him in surgery and figured out how bad everything was).
Anyway, ever since he got so sick, he's been eating Royal Canin Urinary SO food. He'e been doing just fine. I have 9 other cats, and they all eat the SO food because of him, and because most of mine are males, and since its healthy for all of them, we thought it would also be a good preventative measure for something like this happening again.
So last week I took 2 of my cats in for a checkup and vaccines. They ran a full blood and urine panel on both of them and had the samples sent off to a lab. When they got the lab results back, Sheena's were perfect, but Oreo's indicated that he had crystals in his urine. He's not having any urinary problems that I can tell, but the vet said that its likely that it can become a problem.
But now, we're both confused. Technically since Oreo has been eating the SO food, he shouldnt have crystals. She told me that we can switch him to Hill's Prescription Diet for crystals and see if that helps, but I don't want to switch my other cat because he is doing wonderfully on the Royal Canin food.At the moment Oreo doesn't appear to be in any kind of trouble with the crystals, though the reason my other cat got so sick is because he was acting fine. Absolutely fine, until the day he almost died, so clearly cats are good at hiding even life threatening problems.
So I guess my question is - has anyone had a cat eating a prescription food meant to prevent crystals and still had their cat end up with crystals? The vet and I are talking through this, and I'm trying to do some of my own research before she special orders the other food (they sell Royal Canin at this office and nothing else, but they special order other foods when needed). I guess i can ultimately feed them 2 different foods, which will be difficult with the amount of cats that I have, but I can make it work. I'm just confused as to why Oreo is eating food meant to dissolve crystals, yet he still has crystals. So...has anyone dealt with this before?
Anyway, ever since he got so sick, he's been eating Royal Canin Urinary SO food. He'e been doing just fine. I have 9 other cats, and they all eat the SO food because of him, and because most of mine are males, and since its healthy for all of them, we thought it would also be a good preventative measure for something like this happening again.
So last week I took 2 of my cats in for a checkup and vaccines. They ran a full blood and urine panel on both of them and had the samples sent off to a lab. When they got the lab results back, Sheena's were perfect, but Oreo's indicated that he had crystals in his urine. He's not having any urinary problems that I can tell, but the vet said that its likely that it can become a problem.
But now, we're both confused. Technically since Oreo has been eating the SO food, he shouldnt have crystals. She told me that we can switch him to Hill's Prescription Diet for crystals and see if that helps, but I don't want to switch my other cat because he is doing wonderfully on the Royal Canin food.At the moment Oreo doesn't appear to be in any kind of trouble with the crystals, though the reason my other cat got so sick is because he was acting fine. Absolutely fine, until the day he almost died, so clearly cats are good at hiding even life threatening problems.
So I guess my question is - has anyone had a cat eating a prescription food meant to prevent crystals and still had their cat end up with crystals? The vet and I are talking through this, and I'm trying to do some of my own research before she special orders the other food (they sell Royal Canin at this office and nothing else, but they special order other foods when needed). I guess i can ultimately feed them 2 different foods, which will be difficult with the amount of cats that I have, but I can make it work. I'm just confused as to why Oreo is eating food meant to dissolve crystals, yet he still has crystals. So...has anyone dealt with this before?