Monday, October 27, 2014

Mancat Monday


Hello everyone, it's the Mom here.  I have some news about Carmine.

Last week when I picked Milita up from her surgery, I asked the vet tech if Carmine could eat regular (as opposed to urinary tract) canned food because he seems to be really sick of his urinary tract diet.  Who can blame him?  He's been eating the same thing for more than 5 years!!

The vet was adamant that he stay on his urinary tract wet food.  I asked her what we could do because Carmine is sick of it, and pilling him to make him hungry enough to eat it seems really mean to me.

When Carmine was first diagnosed with FLUTD, I tried feeding him Hill's prescription c/d kibbles and wet food.  He ate his kibbles just fine, but he ate the canned version only once or twice and decided he was done with it.

After that, I found Pro Plan had a urinary tract canned food you could buy without a prescription.  He ate this happily (along with his c/d kibbles) for an entire year.  Unfortunately, they only make one flavor of this food, so he eventually got tired of that, too.

Next, he started eating Friskies version of urinary tract diet canned food.  He was pretty happy with that for 3 to 4 years.  We also started giving him Pro Plan occasionally after he had had a sufficient break from it.

We switched him over to the Royal Canin SO kibbles about a year ago when he was losing weight due to IBD and needed to eat more.  He does seem to enjoy the Royal Canin SO kibbles more than he did the Hill's c/d ones.  He definitely eats more kibbles now that we've switched his dry food.  I eventually tried him on the Royal Canin SO canned food, too.  He seemed to like it just fine, but he started getting red dots on his head.  The vet wasn't completely sure if they were allergies or something else, but I took him off the canned version just in case, and since then, he's had no more red dots on his head.

The vet suggested that we try Purina Prescription Diet UR (ST/OX).  Has anyone tried this food before?  Our PetSmarts with Banfield Hospitals don't sell it, so I have to order a case of it on-line, which is a little scary considering he's never tried it and it's so expensive.  Our vet doesn't carry it, either.

The other option is to try the Iams prescription diet, which I had never even heard of.  It is also not available anywhere I know of locally.

Does anyone have experience with either of these foods?  Are there any other urinary tract diets out there that I haven't found?

The other alternative is to get more Royal Canin canned SO and see if those red dots come back.

Any thoughts/experiences would be much appreciated.  I want Carmine to like whatever he is going to eat.  A happy Carmine makes a happy Mom :)

16 comments:

  1. I have a problem with these urinary tract foods, because one of my previous vets told me that they contain extra sodium to make the cat thirstier. That's about all. Seems to me that feeding Carmine what he wants to eat, and finding supplements that work for him might be a better route. Derry has chronic cystitis and I give him PetAlive.com's UTI-Free sprinkled into his canned every day, twice a day, as a preventative. So far so good, after 3 years. NOT suggesting you also would have success, just offering it.

    Plus there's something else for urinary tract *infections* -- not cranberry...marshmallow root, maybe. I'd have to Google.

    Bottom line, we all can chime in, but you have to find what works best for him. Bear in mind the so-called prescription foods aren't always really worth the money, though, IMO.

    Good luck.

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  2. I would suggest switching Carmine to an all canned diet. The added moisture will help with his urinary issues and keep things flowing, so to speak. You could add a little water to the food, too.

    I don't have much experience with the prescription urinary diet foods. Good luck, I hope you can find something that will make Carmine happy.

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  3. Hannah and Lucy eat well on Gourmet canned food and pouches and also Sheba foils and pouches. At night for their last feed I give them Royal Canin Veterinary Diet (chicken and rice) as Lucy used to always be sick during the night and since I have started with it there is rarely a problem. If you would like me to send you a couple of pouches to try let me know your address and I'll mail you.
    Luv Hannah and Lucy xx xx

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  4. I used t feed that UR to my Mister cat but then a vet told me to just not feed Mister any dry food with those darn colors in the kibbles. So I quit feeding him the UR and he will not eat canned food. That was like 10 years ago and he has not had a problem. But don't take my word for it. I do like the Royal Canin dry food. That same cat, Mister had diarrhea something awful, and I switched him over and he is perfect now.

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  5. OH I am so sorry Carmine is having such an awful time. I am especially glad the red dots stopped but disappointed the Vet didn't seem interested in researching the cause. xxoo

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  6. Sorry, we don't really have much experience with those either. Brian does ear Royal Canin Gastrointestinal +SO to battle his cyctitis and we use the UTI-Free also. It does seem to help him unless I go out of town and then he stresses so much it flares up again.

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  7. We don't have any experience with this either. Long time ago, our Suki was supposed to have Hills KD kibbles, and she hated it so much I just quit, and she seemed OK...

    We hope you can find something. Those homeopathic drops sometimes work well, from what I hear in the stores around here.

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  8. We had so much problem with UTI in our boy cats that we were on the dry Royal Canin prescription UR diet for over fifteen years. That was a lot of money but solved the problem. Then one day, we EASED everyone onto Iam's pro health (dry and chicken only) and have never looked back. We don't recommend this switch for everyone and if you have stress in your house, we'd recommend sticking with what works best.

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  9. I hope you figure out something that works for Carmine that he likes. My human hasn't had a male cat with urinary problems in a couple of decades so other people here are way more helpful. But she does want to say that when she switched him over from kibble to a canned food only diet (yes, back in the day they already knew about that), he didn't have any more problems with blockages. She has also heard cat food with fish is not good for boy cats. But she's not a vet, so don't take her word for it.

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  10. We agree with The Island Cats and Summer : we would suggest to try an "only canned food" diet. Purrs

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  11. I've never had a prescription diet appeal to a cat so I can't really help except to reiterate the importance of an all-canned diet. If only cats understood that sometimes they have to eat special things to stay healthy!

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  12. we don't really have experience with FLUTD but our Smidgen had some urinary tract issues that went away when our mom switched us from kibble to wet food. our Pip is on a restricted protein diet so she can understand how Carmine feels - she has been eating the same thing for a LONG time! we aren't sure about the different prescription foods though from what we know of urinary tract issues in cats, wet food is best. purrs for you and Carmine!

    Pip, Smidgen, Minnie, Hollie

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  13. We haven't had to deal with that here, thankfully, but in years past when the vet was selling us kidney diet for the cats who came before, he said that overall, he found that cats found the Purina diets more palatable than the Hills prescription diets. But that varies from cat to cat, of course. We hope that you find a good solution for him soon, but as many have said before, canned food to maximize moisture intake is always a good idea with urinary issues.

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  14. I would not try the one that gave him the skin allergy due to the fact that allergies worsen with subsequent exposures. Wow you can't find it online unless you buy a case either can you! That is really frustrating! I am so sorry, I will check around here and see if anyone has any options and share with you if they do.
    Marty's Mom

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  15. We are so sorry to hear that Carmine is tired of his food. Could you try some of the ones he previously grew tired again?

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  16. Poor Carmine :( While none of us have any urinary tract infections, we do eat an all canned-food diet. No dry kibble for us at all. Our vet supports this diet choice 100%, as he says that a canned food diet is much better for the urinary tract system. Maybe if you fed only wet food, even if it isn't specifically UTI food, it would work?

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