Lower urinary tract disease in cats

[Kat]

Hey guys, so I've made earlier posts about this, but I want an opinion from someone who doesn't work in the vets office lol. My cat was diagnosed with lower urinary tract disease about a year ago, and i have since switched her to the Royal Canin Urinary S/O canned and dry food. It's better than the science diet and pedigree foods for urinary health, but I still wish it could be better. I was recently looking at Wellness foods again, not the Wellness Core because thats one of the foods that made her develop struvite crystals in the past. I was looking at the regular Wellness chicken formula, and they claim that it helps with urinary health without using corn gluten or corn.

Urinary Health System

A focus on Urinary Tract Health with:

Ideal Urine pH
- Stones will not form in urine that is neither too acidic or too alkaline
- Data showing low Standard Error of Mean and therefore extremely accurate results

Controlled Ash & Mineral (Ca, Mg) levels
- Help prevent urinary calcium and/or magnesium stones from forming
- Low mineral levels without the use of corn or corn gluten

Natural Cranberry Power
- Natural urine acidifiers and bacteria fighters with 3 distinct sources of cranberries

http://www.wellnesspetfood.com/cat_well ... icken.html

and it has much better ingredients that I wouldnt mind feeding my cat. Yes, it still has some grain, but not as much as the Royal Canin Urinary S/O. I would talk about this to my vet or one of the people that work at the clinic I go to, but I feel that they may say to stay on the Royal Canin just because I would have to buy it from their office and they make money from it. Reading the nutrition facts I see that the food is low in calcium, phosphorus, and magnesium, which in higher levels can contribute to urinary problems and formation of crystals/stones. So if anyone would take a little bit of time to maybe review both the Royal Canin and Wellness Chicken Formula, I would really appreciate it. Everyone I have talked to it about already don't really understand what I'm talking about, and know little about the topic. Here is some info on the Royal Canin one :
http://www.royalcanin.us/products/produ ... spx?ID=107
You can click on the product guide to see the ingredients and nutrition facts. One thing the Royal Canin does is say that the formula can dissolve pure struvite uroliths.

So, should I stick with the Royal Canin Urinary S/O or try the Wellness Chicken; or even the healthy weight or indoor health recipes. The RC has been doing its job, and I haven't had to take my cat back to the vet since I started her on the food, but I would just love to have a food that is a bit better for her.

 

[Kayla]

I have dealt with urinary tract issues with a few of my cats for the past few years. I would probably stick with the RC because if you don't your vet will likely blame you every time your cat has urinary tract issues. (Unless you're sure your vet isn't like that) We tried other urinary tract health related foods, but our girls would still get UTIs every now and then. We stuck with the RC and our one female had a UTI while on the food, so our one vet (who we don't really like) was able to see that there was something else at work (stress) with our cat's UTIs. I really didn't want to feed my cats the RC because it's ingredients etc, and the foods I was feeding before were actually more expensive and, in my opinion, a superior quality.

On another note, our boys are doing well on the Wellness food you mentioned, but they are not easily stressed like my girls are. My girls get stressed so easily that they can get sick from us moving furniture to other rooms. (In their defense, they had moved a lot before we bought our house because I hated almost every place I rented.)

You could always try the wellness. You may get lucky and not have any more issues, but be prepared to listen to how bad of a pet owner you are (for not feeding vet prescribed food) if anything goes wrong.

Good luck. I hope your kitty is healthy no matter what you choose. :wink:

 

[Kat]

Wow, thank you so much for replying to me Kayla. One of the factors for my cat is also stress, which I forgot to mention earlier. My vet suggested I buy the plug in that sprays some sort of calming oil into the air, and from what I can tell, it seems to be working. My cat used to meow like crazy every night because she didn't like being alone, but that has calmed down some since I started using the oil. She does give me a good way of showing when she has a UTI, because she urinates on my bed each time. I think sometime in the near future, I will try the Wellness, the only thing is I am pretty worried/scared about is that she may get more struvite crystals and blood in her urine, but I would still like to give it a shot. I'm pretty crazy when it comes to my cat >.< lol...Thanks again

P.S- and that is so true, if you disagree with a vet about not wanting to buy a vet perscribed diet they treat you like you don't care about your pet at all, like my old vet would give me SUCH attitude when I refused to put my cat on Science Diet, she would actually give me attitude everytime I came in, which made me switch vets lol.

 

[jorats]

I too would give it a try... if it doesn't seem to work, then go back to what the vet recommended.
Stress is a huge factor for cats and UTIs.

 

[sausage4ever]

I too agree with Jo, give it a shot...it really can't hurt too much.

P.S- and that is so true, if you disagree with a vet about not wanting to buy a vet perscribed diet they treat you like you don't care about your pet at all, like my old vet would give me SUCH attitude when I refused to put my cat on Science Diet, she would actually give me attitude everytime I came in, which made me switch vets lol.

I'm having this problem with my vets right now. My vet(s) (who I used to work for, and is the rats' vet) is tryingto get me to feed my cats t/d due to their gingivitis, however I have access to the Hill's research and it says that the food is for getting rid of tartar and plaque, which my cats don't have! My kitties get canned food and their teeth brushed. I no longer believe in dry food for cats, so t/d is obviously not an option. THese pets are so bad they don't think that grain-free makes a difference because there's no research on it. :gaah: So I'm switching my cats to one in Guelph.

 

[Kat]

I would love to go back to a grain free diet for my cat, she did so well on it before her UTI's started. But you're right, vet's really need to get better nutrition education. One of my old co-workers went to vet school, and the nutrition course they had was sponsored by Science Diet, so they only learned about that diet thinking it was the best for animals.

 

[jorats]

Isn't that weird, there's no study on grain free diets and cats?

 

[Kat]

Well from what she told me, vets can take additional nutrition courses, which is an extra 1 or 2 years, but since its not really mandatory, most people choose not to do it. From previous vets I have been to, and talked to them about grain free diets they have disagreed with me and said it's not proven to be better for our cats. There was actually an interesting article I came across a few months ago discussing the benefits of grain free, but i completely forget where I saw that info. I wish I had tagged it so I can post it. I'll try to find it again.

Edit: Origen (not the original article I was talking about) has some information about benefits of grain free and discuss what grains/carbs actually do inside the body of a cat or dog. If anyone wants to check it out, here is the site, you can also scroll down to click on the orijen white pages to get ''biologically appropriate food concept and the dietary needs of cats and dogs''. It's an interesting read if you haven't seen it before. I would like to show this to some vets I have come across lol. One link is on low carbs, and the other is the grain free one.

http://www.orijen.ca/orijen/orijen/lowCarb.aspx

http://www.orijen.ca/orijen/orijen/grainFree.aspx

 

[sausage4ever]

Kat these papers are great but they are not scientific studies. I am going into animal nutrition and will be taking as much as I can about pet and swine nutrition, and will hopefully be able to perform my own studies on this issue.

 

[Kat]

Yeah, I know they aren't scientific studies, but it's more info than most vets know. I found a really good site once, but I can't remember it.