Other alternatives to Hills prescription s/d?

Our female cat recently had emergency cystotomy surgery for bladder stones
or crystals. The crystals were evidently of the Struvite variety and Hills
prescription s/d was recommended. We have both cans and dry food of this
variety.
Here is our problem. We have two other adult cats besides Ripley, our
surgery kitty.
Can all three cats eat this s/d on a daily basis? Our vet seemed to indicate
that they could, but that leads to our second problem.
*None* of the cats (Ripley included) will eat the canned s/d. They will not
even be so much as in the same room with this food. They all will more or
less pick at the dry s/d, but I fear they will never change their attitudes
toward the canned. One of these cats is a senior and on the thin side so I
don't need him going on any kind of hunger strike. It would also be
extremely difficult to feed them seperately.
So is there another more commercially made canned cat food that would have a
similar formula to the s/d but that they might all find a bit more to their
liking? I'm not talking necessarily about a cheap supermarket brand. We have
several pet shops that carry a wide variety of more 'natural' type brands.

Any other suggestions to help this kitty with her life of hopefully
remaining bladder stone free?

Thanks,

Phil

in article et, Phil at
wrote on 3/9/05 7:15 PM:

Our female cat recently had emergency cystotomy surgery for bladder stones
or crystals. The crystals were evidently of the Struvite variety and Hills
prescription s/d was recommended. We have both cans and dry food of this
variety.
Here is our problem. We have two other adult cats besides Ripley, our
surgery kitty.
Can all three cats eat this s/d on a daily basis? Our vet seemed to indicate
that they could, but that leads to our second problem.
*None* of the cats (Ripley included) will eat the canned s/d. They will not
even be so much as in the same room with this food. They all will more or
less pick at the dry s/d, but I fear they will never change their attitudes
toward the canned. One of these cats is a senior and on the thin side so I
don't need him going on any kind of hunger strike. It would also be
extremely difficult to feed them seperately.
So is there another more commercially made canned cat food that would have a
similar formula to the s/d but that they might all find a bit more to their
liking? I'm not talking necessarily about a cheap supermarket brand. We have
several pet shops that carry a wide variety of more 'natural' type brands.

Any other suggestions to help this kitty with her life of hopefully
remaining bladder stone free?

Thanks,

Phil


I know there are at least two other versions. One by Eukanuba, one by
Walthams, oh and I think there is one by IVD. All available through vets.
Maybe your vet could arrange a sampling of each?

"Karen" wrote in message
...
in article et, Phil at
wrote on 3/9/05 7:15 PM:

Our female cat recently had emergency cystotomy surgery for bladder
stones
or crystals. The crystals were evidently of the Struvite variety and
Hills
prescription s/d was recommended. We have both cans and dry food of this
variety.
Here is our problem. We have two other adult cats besides Ripley, our
surgery kitty.
Can all three cats eat this s/d on a daily basis? Our vet seemed to
indicate
that they could, but that leads to our second problem.
*None* of the cats (Ripley included) will eat the canned s/d. They will
not
even be so much as in the same room with this food. They all will more
or
less pick at the dry s/d, but I fear they will never change their
attitudes
toward the canned. One of these cats is a senior and on the thin side so
I
don't need him going on any kind of hunger strike. It would also be
extremely difficult to feed them seperately.
So is there another more commercially made canned cat food that would
have a
similar formula to the s/d but that they might all find a bit more to
their
liking? I'm not talking necessarily about a cheap supermarket brand. We
have
several pet shops that carry a wide variety of more 'natural' type
brands.

Any other suggestions to help this kitty with her life of hopefully
remaining bladder stone free?

Thanks,

Phil


I know there are at least two other versions. One by Eukanuba, one by
Walthams, oh and I think there is one by IVD. All available through vets.
Maybe your vet could arrange a sampling of each?


Thanks, I'll inquire about those.

An easy alternative to feeding an acidified prescription food is to feed
*canned* Wellness brand cat food and have the vet prescribe Methioform
tabs, which is a urinary acidifier in pill form. Wellness promotes a
urine ph very similar to Science Diet c/d and the Methioform tabs will
send the ph into the more acid range which is what s/d would do. It
would not be wise to feed the other cats the precription diet as it is
designed to dissolve struvite crystals and would be too acid for a
healthy cat, putting them at risk for developing calcium oxalate
crystals or stones. All your cats could eat the Wellness with the one
cat getting the Methioform tablets (which a lot of cats really like the
taste of.) The main flavors I feed my own cats are chicken, turkey,
chicken and herring, and turkey and salmon. For future reference,
feeding scheduled meals of a high quality canned diet and eliminating
dry food will help avoid situations such as the one you're dealing with.
HTH.

Megan



"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do
nothing."

-Edmund Burke

Learn The TRUTH About Declawing
http://www.stopdeclaw.com

Zuzu's Cats Photo Album:
http://www.PictureTrail.com/zuzu22

"Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one
elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and
splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then
providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision,
raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and
material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his
way."

- W.H. Murray

Very dangerous advice. Talk to your vet before doing anything. The
suggestion to use any Wellness product with added urinary acidifiers is
just plain dangerous. Urine pH is NOT the only issue here, it is much
more complicated than that.

On Wed 09 Mar 2005 10:29:44p, Steve Crane wrote in
rec.pets.cats.health+behav
roups.com):

Very dangerous advice. Talk to your vet before doing anything.
The suggestion to use any Wellness product with added urinary
acidifiers is just plain dangerous. Urine pH is NOT the only
issue here, it is much more complicated than that.


Please elaborate for us Steve.

--
Cheryl

Feline Lower urinary tract disease is substantially more than just
urine pH. Magnesium levels, potassium levels, calcium levels, sodium
levels and a number of biological factors must be taken into account.

Pet foods designed for struvite dissolution or struvite maintenace
almost always are subject to much more critical testing than just urine
pH. Hill's prefers to use a system called APR - activity product ratio.
You can google on this and learn more about it if your wish. Basically
this tests ALL the factors involved, including biological and
determines if a given nutrient profile will acheive the goal. Waltham /
Royal Canin uses what they call the RSS - Risk Super Saturation - it's
similar test process, but done in vitro. I am not sure what Purina does
nor Eukanuba. Neither promote thier food for struvite dissolution, only
for stuvite maintenace. They haven't ever published anything relative
to the process they choose to use. Leo over in Europe uses RSS as well.


Where ZUZU always goes wrong is she allows her undisguised hatred for
Hill's to interfere with her logic. It's an emotional decision and not
one established in any science or logical facts. Wellness has never
published ANY testing of any kind to insure that struvite dissolution
will ocurr with thier diet with added methioform or any other urinary
acidifier. Wellness can't even tell you what the mean urine pH range
will be of the various diets they produce and why on earth should they?
- they are not in the business of creating theerapeutic diets. They
create diets for healthy kitties.

Like usual ZUZU likes to stick with third grade math level of analyzing
diets - just the ingredients and never mind the nutrients. In the case
of any animal with a disease condition that is patently dangerous in
the extreme. Examples of this cat or that cat that "did well" are
completely meaningless. We are talking about the general population of
struvite dissolution cats here, not one single cat or even a dozen
single cats. The peer reviewed published data covering Hill's and Royal
Canin's dissoltuion products is huge - in contrast there isn't a single
bit of published data to support Wellness and methioform tabs. Advice
like that can send the cat back for another surgery and will ZUZU pay
the bill for it? Not likely.

As an interesting note to the whole discussion. You may know that since
1981 Calcium Oxalate stones have grown as a percentage of all stones in
a cat. By 1995 CaOx stones overcame struvites as the most common stone.
This trend began reversing itself in 2002 and now once again in 2004
there were more struvite stones found that CaOx stones.

1999 33% Struvite, 55% CaOx
2002 40% Struvite, 50% CaOx
2003 42% Struvite, 47% CaOx
2004 45% Struvite, 44% CaOx
The missing percentage is taken up by urates, cystines, and assorted
other unusual uroliths.

Steve Crane wrote:
snip expected bull****

Nice try at scaring people away from what is working for them. Hopefully
they'll see you have a financial interest in everything you post, look
at your lies with a critical eye, and ignore the scamming you do.

And BTW, Wellness does tell you the ph range for their foods. Call them
and ask. I did.

Megan



"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do
nothing."

-Edmund Burke

Learn The TRUTH About Declawing
http://www.stopdeclaw.com

Zuzu's Cats Photo Album:
http://www.PictureTrail.com/zuzu22

"Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one
elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and
splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then
providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision,
raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and
material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his
way."

- W.H. Murray

"Steve Crane" wrote in message
oups.com...
Very dangerous advice. Talk to your vet before doing anything. The
suggestion to use any Wellness product with added urinary acidifiers is
just plain dangerous. Urine pH is NOT the only issue here, it is much
more complicated than that.


Just curious what Phil has to say.

"Mary" wrote in message
news:1110426994.e2f36c7f70aa8e17663ed6d1dc9ee255@t eranews...

"Steve Crane" wrote in message
oups.com...
Very dangerous advice. Talk to your vet before doing anything. The
suggestion to use any Wellness product with added urinary acidifiers is
just plain dangerous. Urine pH is NOT the only issue here, it is much
more complicated than that.


Just curious what Phil has to say.


Adding an acidifier to an already acidified diet is very risky business -
but if the cat won't eat a prescription diet, you may not have a choice.
However, adding an acidifier to an already acidified diet is a bit more
complicated than just giving the cat the pill or mixing it in food and
checking urine pH and sediment once in awhile.

The dose must be carefully calculated and serum chemistries that includes
total CO2 content and potassium levels must done periodically to make sure
that the cat's acid-base status is still normal. Otherwise, chronic
acidification can lead to metabolic acidosis which in turn can cause
potassium depletion which causes further metabolic acidosis and even further
potassium depletion and eventually renal dysfunction and bone
demineralization.

Wellness contains a lot of plant material (sweet potatoes, carrots,
vegetable gums, flaxseed, alfalfa, cranberries, blueberries, yellow squash,
yellow zucchini, garlic, spirulina) so it has to be already highly
acidified to produce a low urine pH. The amount of dl-methionine already in
the diet must be considered in calculating the dose because high levels of
dl-methionine causes hemolytic anemia, met hemoglobinemia, and Heinz body
formation in cats.

Phil