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- Dec 27, 2019
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So my nearly 2 year old female cat Echo developed a UTI (e-coli) back in January after a bad visit at a different vet and was on 14 days of Orbax antibiotic. The urinalysis at the time showed that she had a urine PH of 6.5 and there was no mention or indication of crystals at that time.
We did a retest last week to confirm infection was good and gone (it is), but now her Ph came in at a 7 and there was some struvite crystal formation. My vet's office (only spoke to front desk) suggested I get Methagel paste and including raw in her diet. They said it could be genetic which I get, but I'm hoping the right diet would alleviate the issue if her pH is correctly balanced? I don't want to go overboard and over-acidify her urine and thus invite oxalate crystals. I feel a bit in over my head here. Can pH change from day to day? How quickly do struvite crystals form or break up? Clearly I have questions for my vet.
Her diet has always been high quality canned (Holistic Select chicken, Hound and Gatos brand, and Rawz pate when I can swing it) -so I'm really perplexed by her developing this issue and am trying to not get paniced about it and the increased risk of blocking associated with this. I have to call back tomorrow and ask what degree of crystals were noted (a lot? A few?) and ask for the full analysis to be sent to me. Here is where I need help. What wet food brand should I be feeding her? I have to place an order with Chewy asap anyway, but now am uncertain that the brands I've been using are resulting in the right urine pH.
I did give her some raw with her afternoon meal today. It's a brand from my vet's called Abady (local to NY I guess), but I'm reading it contains rice -which is counterproductive in this situation as far as I've read? I feel overwhelmed and want to fix this issue for my girl. She's been peeing 4-5 times per day and gets 1 can of food split into 3 meals with water added to each. I also was adding 1/8tsp d mannose to each meal lately since the UTI. She also gets probiotics added to 1-2 meals per day, occasionally a dab of pumpkin or psyllium if constipated at all, and I add 1/8-1/4tsp salmon oil to most meals as recommended by my vet.
If anyone is seeing obvious red flags in what I'm doing, please let me know. I want her to be happy and healthy and feel like I'm not doing right by her somehow.
We did a retest last week to confirm infection was good and gone (it is), but now her Ph came in at a 7 and there was some struvite crystal formation. My vet's office (only spoke to front desk) suggested I get Methagel paste and including raw in her diet. They said it could be genetic which I get, but I'm hoping the right diet would alleviate the issue if her pH is correctly balanced? I don't want to go overboard and over-acidify her urine and thus invite oxalate crystals. I feel a bit in over my head here. Can pH change from day to day? How quickly do struvite crystals form or break up? Clearly I have questions for my vet.
Her diet has always been high quality canned (Holistic Select chicken, Hound and Gatos brand, and Rawz pate when I can swing it) -so I'm really perplexed by her developing this issue and am trying to not get paniced about it and the increased risk of blocking associated with this. I have to call back tomorrow and ask what degree of crystals were noted (a lot? A few?) and ask for the full analysis to be sent to me. Here is where I need help. What wet food brand should I be feeding her? I have to place an order with Chewy asap anyway, but now am uncertain that the brands I've been using are resulting in the right urine pH.
I did give her some raw with her afternoon meal today. It's a brand from my vet's called Abady (local to NY I guess), but I'm reading it contains rice -which is counterproductive in this situation as far as I've read? I feel overwhelmed and want to fix this issue for my girl. She's been peeing 4-5 times per day and gets 1 can of food split into 3 meals with water added to each. I also was adding 1/8tsp d mannose to each meal lately since the UTI. She also gets probiotics added to 1-2 meals per day, occasionally a dab of pumpkin or psyllium if constipated at all, and I add 1/8-1/4tsp salmon oil to most meals as recommended by my vet.
If anyone is seeing obvious red flags in what I'm doing, please let me know. I want her to be happy and healthy and feel like I'm not doing right by her somehow.