Urinary crystals-- My senior kitty won't eat the prescribed food!!

[kmm808]

Hi everyone,

I have a 12 year old Russian Blue mix female, Lulu,  that was perfectly healthy until 7 weeks ago when she had a urinary tract infection with crystals brought on by stress and anxiety (according to the vet). We had just tented our home and she had to live in a crate for 2 days after never being in one for 12 years!! Suffice to say she was NOT HAPPY!! The vet prescribed antibiotics and feline c/d.

Anyway, Lulu is a drama queen and does NOT accept change AT ALL!! It is always HER WAY or NO WAY!!  She was highly suspicious of the dry c/d and hid under the bed from the canned c/d. The vet game me another diet, s/o? No luck with that either! I ordered a Purina Pro urinary Focus bag of dry and case of canned and ended up feeding it to my other cats.

I tried locking Lulu up with the food in a room and she scratched the paint off the doors and tore the curtains off the walls and screamed to get out like someone was skinning her!! I think that brought on even more stress!

She is going in for her 5th urinary checkup this Saturday and has been on antibiotics for 2 weeks.

Any recommendations or advice on how I can get her to eat the veterinary diet? She has been on Whole earth foods grain free kitten chicken dry food for the past 2 years because I have a cat with IBS-D and food allergies that can only eat that.

Thanks you in advance for any help!!

By the way, I have 6 other indoor cats, and none of them are like her! My son raised and spoiled her and left her with us when he went to college 3 years ago. She was certainly spoiled by him, I can tell!

Aloha,

Kim

 

[kmm808]

Sorry, I meant she's been on 2 different antibiotics for 7 weeks. Clavamox, then Baytril, then Clavamox again. Her crystal count has not gotten any better since the first checkup.

 

[fodder]

You could try mashing it up a feeding it to her via needless syringe. It is pretty important that she get the prescription food in one way or another.
Another thing that is important is water intake. She needs to be getting a fair bit of fresh water in.  You can also give this to her via syringe if she doesn't drink much.

Make sure she doesn't get ANY dry food aside from prescription food.  Keep her away from your other cats food. If she has another source of food aside from the prescription stuff she will never eat the prescription stuff. 

Something that helps if her PH is too alkaline is apple cider vinegar and or cranberry juice/supplements. This is more a temporary thing though to help with the hard times. It definitely helps but it is really essential to get that prescription stuff in somehow. There is a lot of information online about the ACV and dosing etc.

You could try mixing some of the prescription food in with something else she likes. It is much better for her to get some of the prescription food in than none at all, but again, i would be giving her wet food only at this stage. 

7 weeks seems like a long time for a uti to last, especially if it was a stress event that caused it. Seems more likely that what ever she is eating is the main cause for the problem.