Feline urinary crystals

[zanna 10]

So it would seem that ALL my animals are falling to pieces.

 

My cat has recurring stress induced cystitis and a recent analysis has found crystals in his urine. (He is stressed as he was in a car accident and had to have his whole tail removed. This has lead to him being bullied by other cats and he has developed OCD grooming and refuses to leave the house any more. Feliway ordered. Will be taking out shares in DAP at this rate)

 

Anyways…

 

The cystitis is being dealt with re antibiotics but what I am wanting to know is, other than the expensive prescription diet the vet is suggesting as a solution to the crystals, are there any other ways to help keep these crystals at bay? Surely there is something holistic or a supplement that can be added to his dinner? FYI h is on kibble only and has been for a long time. The internet suggests this might not be a good idea?

 

IF the anxiety and the crystals and the cystitis are recurrent and are going to leave him with another 10+ years of misery then obviously I will have to think hard about ‘the unthinkable’ but if there is anything I can do in the mean time to at least try and remedy his urinary issues then I will

[medusa 16]

I'm afraid that there really isn't anything other than the prescription food to keep it at bay, but he MAY not need it full time once he's stabilised.

 

Whatever the internet says, my Merlin was on Hills C/D dry biscuits her whole life as she refused to eat anything that didn't crunch and apart from making her fat (it's rather high calorie) she never had any problems at all with it.

 

Go with the kibble and try to work a way for him to eat it full time initially. My solution to this was to put it in all of the bowls so that there was no food jealousy, but over time I mixed it gradually with a plain crunchie, first 10% of Canin Fit32 and then graduating up to 50% over a couple of years.

 

Once stabilised it's not misery and it's not stress and he will be a happy cat again. You'll have a couple of months of getting used to it and then it will be normal food (and if you have pet insurance, check out whether you can claim back for it).

 

Merlin had proper FLUTD her whole life, but once she was on the C/D she stabilised quickly and had maybe half a dozen more episodes in her whole 15 years of happy, healthy and purry life.

 

Tiffy had a couple of episodes of stress related crystals and was put on the Canin alternative to C/D but just plain refused to eat it, which then became a further source of stress, so I used an old bag of C/D that I had, she liked it and it all went away (and she went back to being a happy cat).

 

Deep breath honey- this is not the end of the world nor is it anything at all of note compared to the pain that he must have been in due to the accident. It's distressing watching them strain in the litter tray, but once on the right food he could be happy and healthy again in days.

 

EDIT- Merlin was one of the few cats that I've met that had eating as one of her hobbies. Another cat may not be quite as fat on C/D as she was, or they may have reformulated to reduce the calorific content over the last few years since she died.

[Ethella 14]

My cat had a bad attack of urinary crystals (four days in hospital) a few years ago and had three or four more small attacks since which were treated with an injection by his vet.

 

He's now on Hill's C/D dry and wet (luckily he loves both) and it's will be two years ago next January since his last attack.

 

I get the Hills C/D from an online company called Viovet. They usually deliver two days after placing the order and the carriage is free on orders over £27.

[zanna 10]

Thanks Medusa, My brain is a bit frazzled with juggling medications for the cat and therapy for the dogs etc etc… I got really confused with the time line of food etc, would you mid explaining again as if your taking to an idiot !!!!! also would you know if it would cause any problems if one of my other cats happened to eat some?

 

Many many thanks!

 

 

 

 

Ethella.... how long does that usually last you do you think??

[medusa 16]

There are no ill effects to other cats eating some (or indeed all) of their diet as C/D. The diets for urinary crystals work by changing the pH of urine and thereby keeping the uric acid (which is the bit that crystallises out) liquid and excreted by the kidneys properly. None of the prescription diets contain a drug so they are perfectly safe for other cats.

 

If you start off by putting down C/D for your boy cat and he prefers the other food that you put down so he swaps with another cat then the food is wasted (cos another cat has eaten it) and he's still ill.

 

If you put down C/D in ALL of the bowls then all of the cats eat it, they accept it as normal and you guarantee that he has all of his diet made up of prescription food, which gives him the best chance of being symptom free quickly (and won't do any other cat any harm).

 

Once he's stabilised you can start by buying another good kibble and mixing 100g of that per 1kg of prescription food in a box, mixing well and then feeding that as your full time feed and check while he's on it that he's not got any breakthrough symptoms.

 

If he's fine with a 10% mix then you can try a 20% mix, by adding 200g per 1kg of prescription food in a bucket.

 

We got to a 60/40 mix (6kg of C/D and 4kg of Canin Fit32 normal crunchies mixed in a big box and used as their full time food) without Merlin showing any symptoms at all, which dropped the overall cost of the food considerably since the Fit32 is a much less expensive but still good quality food. She was on the food for 15 years so the cost difference between pure prescription food for all that time for 4 cats and the mix was definitely worthwhile.

[onewheeldave 22]

It's worth mentioning that feeding dry food (kibble) is a well known cause of urinary and other issues in cats.

 

http://www.blakkatz.com/dryfood.html

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=kibble+urinary&hl=en

 

if the cats well established on dry foods, then it may be very difficult to get it to change, but, the fact is that if it continues to eat dry food then its health will likely continue to degenerate, and, when it comes to new cats, they'll do a lot better if given proper wet food.

[spats 10]

Have to disagree with onewheeldave. Pet food manufacturers have significantly invested in upgrading the formula of complete dry foods after health risks were first identified a few years back. I would always recommend using an established name, Iams, Eukanuba, Hills etc. The cheaper varieties such as Go-Cat, Munchies, shops own brands will be of inferior quality & have more additives. The prescription diet that is recommended for cats prone to urinary crystals has been especially developed to help prevent crystal formation. Just remember to provide plenty of fresh water at all times.

[medusa 16]

I'm with spats on this one onewheeldave. The information about dry foods and urinary problems is decades out of date and the good quality complete biscuits are not associated with problems. With the number of cats I've had and which have lived their entire lives on dry diets if there was an issue with urinary health I'd have had way more than one cat with FLUTD.

 

The prescription diets are clinically proven to reduce the crystals without medication.

[Ethella 14]

My cat only ate dry kibbles and refused to eat any wet food at all. He has always drunk a lot of water. Because I worried about him not getting enough liquid I used to give him cooked chicken and fish as well a couple of time a week, thinking I was helping him get more liquid when it was exactly the opposite.

 

When I went to collect him from the vets after his first bad attack, I was given a lecture about not giving him any meat/fish of any kind. The vet also said 'in his opinion' Iams and Go-cat were the worst cat foods for sale and to give him Hills.

 

A couple of years later a different vet put him on the C/D diet and gave me a leaflet about trying to get him to eat wet food. It's sort of worked as now he will eat 1/2 a pouch of wet food each day.

[parcher 10]

Mozart (my Avatar) had this problem for years. After a couple of bouts where he was admitted with obstruction, he was prescribed the urinary Hills biscuits (it was the only brand he liked) and he had to have a pill every night, which, if I remember correctly was Glucosamine, sourced over the internet from one of the veterinary medicine sites. We also bought a catit as he preferred to drink from the sink, so we thought a constant supply of clean cool water would help him too and increase his drinking. He survived quite happily for many years without any further episodes.