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Combining Hill's c/d-s and Uroeze (Ammonium Chloride)
I have a question regarding my cat with FLUTD. My cat had two
episodes of being blocked so the doctor recommended him eating a prescription food, Hill's c/d-s. The cat would not eat it at all, neither canned nor dry, so instead the doctor recommended that we put Uroeze (Ammonium Chloride) in his normal wet food. This worked well and the cat ate the food. Sometimes as a snack, my wife tried giving him the dry Hill's c/d-s food and he began to eat that. Recently when we spoke to the doctor he told us that the cat should not eat both food, only one or the other. This does not make much sense to me. The analogy that I used was if a person was vitamin C deficient and a doctor said, "You can eat 10 oranges or 8 lemons a day", it would be perfectly legitimate to eat 5 oranges and 4 lemons and you should still get the same amount of vitamin C. Or another analogy would be if you were trying to eat low fat foods, you should be able to eat any low fat food, not just one. The same logic should apply to the cat foods. Has anyone else had experience with this? Any advice? Thanks! Sincerely, Mark |
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in article , MarkF at
wrote on 9/3/03 9:43 PM: I have a question regarding my cat with FLUTD. My cat had two episodes of being blocked so the doctor recommended him eating a prescription food, Hill's c/d-s. The cat would not eat it at all, neither canned nor dry, so instead the doctor recommended that we put Uroeze (Ammonium Chloride) in his normal wet food. This worked well and the cat ate the food. Sometimes as a snack, my wife tried giving him the dry Hill's c/d-s food and he began to eat that. Recently when we spoke to the doctor he told us that the cat should not eat both food, only one or the other. This does not make much sense to me. The analogy that I used was if a person was vitamin C deficient and a doctor said, "You can eat 10 oranges or 8 lemons a day", it would be perfectly legitimate to eat 5 oranges and 4 lemons and you should still get the same amount of vitamin C. Or another analogy would be if you were trying to eat low fat foods, you should be able to eat any low fat food, not just one. The same logic should apply to the cat foods. Has anyone else had experience with this? Any advice? Thanks! Sincerely, Mark Wet is better than dry because of the extra water content, but since c/d is specifically for the treatment of FLUTD, I'm not sure why dry as a snack would be a no no from that standpoint, only that perhaps the doctor also wants as much as possible. There are a couple of different vet brands for this, but if he eats the c/d now, I guess I'd leave it at that. Also, put bowls of water all over the house to remind him to drink. Karen |
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Ammonium chloride also tastes bad so it is interesting that a cat will
tolerate it mixed in its food. Aparently Uroeze adds additional ingredients to make the Ammonium Chloride more palatable. Another thing they add is salt, which probably makes the cat more thirsty. The cat doesn't seem to mind the taste - actually he laps up the "gravy" (the food is the kind with bits of meat in a gravy and we mix the powder in with extra water). Occasionally he throws up after drinking too much of the liquid at once, but I've read that is a possible side-effect. One thing about diets for cats with urinary tract disease is that they are low in ash content. What does the vet say on that subject? He hasn't commented on this. I've read various comments about ash content, some saying it's significant and some saying not, so I'm not really sure what to think about it. Thanks for the feedback! Mark |
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Ammonium chloride also tastes bad so it is interesting that a cat will
tolerate it mixed in its food. Aparently Uroeze adds additional ingredients to make the Ammonium Chloride more palatable. Another thing they add is salt, which probably makes the cat more thirsty. The cat doesn't seem to mind the taste - actually he laps up the "gravy" (the food is the kind with bits of meat in a gravy and we mix the powder in with extra water). Occasionally he throws up after drinking too much of the liquid at once, but I've read that is a possible side-effect. One thing about diets for cats with urinary tract disease is that they are low in ash content. What does the vet say on that subject? He hasn't commented on this. I've read various comments about ash content, some saying it's significant and some saying not, so I'm not really sure what to think about it. Thanks for the feedback! Mark |
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#10
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Your veterinarian is quite correct on this one. If you dose the cat
with Uroeze according to directions and then add in a food which is designed to acidify the diet to the proper range of 6.2-6.4 you run the risk of over acidifying the diet and endangering the cat with the formation of Calcium Oxalte crystals which form in aicd urine below 6.2. I spoke to my vet about the situation (my wife spoke to him first) and though at first he kept to his first argument, ultimately he agreed with me. I started by explaining that the cat primarily eats the Uroeze-treated wet food, but that as a "snack" we give him a small amount of the dry found. He again tried to argue that this would "over acidify" him, but again this sounded like the argument of getting too much vitamin C because you're eating oranges and lemons instead of oranges only. I then asked, "as a snack, should I then feed him non-prescription food instead?" and he answered, "no, the cat should only eat prescription food." "Like the Hill's diet, for example?" as asked. "Yes, that would be good," was his reply. People don't seem to get the point that eating two foods with an acidying effect should be the same as eating one food (as long as the total quantities of food are equal). This seems like very basic science to me. The only way that using both should increase the acidifying effect is if I were add the Uroeze to the Hill's diet, which I am not. Ultimately, I think I stick with the current plan. Eating primarily wet food will give him the liquid he needs, and the 1/2 cup of Hill's diet at night will give him something to crunch on, which he likes. As a 27 pound Maine Coon monster, the 1/2 cup shouldn't have that much impact either way. Thanks for everyone's advice! Mark |
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