I need help picking the right food? Female with some struvite

Time 2 Recognize

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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.
 

kittyluv387

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I'm sorry to hear this. Your kitty sounds particularly sensitive.

Hills S/D canned is supposed to be really effective for getting rid of struvite crystals. But it's to be used temporarily since it is overly acidic.
Cat Urinary Tract Diseases: Cystitis, Urethral Obstruction, Urinary Tract Infection

For commercial raw I would stick to boneless formulas from reputable companies. From looking at the link you provided it does have me raising some eyebrows. They list kidney as the first ingredient. It should be muscle meat not organ being the main ingredient. And I don't like how they used bone meal. It's a low quality source of calcium. They use safflower oil, a vegetable oil right? Not sure how digestible that's going to be for an obligate carnivore. I'd go for more like Stella and Chewys Raw Medallions.

Super Premium Cat Food: Raw Medallions | Stella & Chewy's
 

kittyluv387

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About the canned food I'm also not seeing anything you're doing wrong. I actually also feed Holistic Select, Hound & Gatos and Rawz! But my 2 cats who eat canned in the morning eat homemade raw at night. Hopefully if you transition your kitty to half raw, it will be enough to keep her Crystal's in check. If not you might have to move her up to 100% raw. Meat by itself is supposed to be acidic but unless you test the canned food with ph strips you really won't know since they go through processing.
 
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Thank you so much for replying and sharing.
Hills S/D canned is supposed to be really effective for getting rid of struvite crystals. But it's to be used temporarily since it is overly acidic.
I'll ask my vet about this, but yeah I do want to keep her on high quality and maybe add some raw. But I guess not this one. I realized that I do have some Lotus raw chicken formula that I got a small container of. I don't know. It does make me uneasy. The front desk said they recommend Methagel, which is supposed to make the urine more acidic. I don't want to swing things too far in the other direction doing too much at once. So maybe that would be enough? I'm definitely getting pH strips to test her urine at home (I have a separate tray and can get hydrophobic litter to collect sample).

About the canned food I'm also not seeing anything you're doing wrong. I actually also feed Holistic Select, Hound & Gatos and Rawz! But my 2 cats who eat canned in the morning eat homemade raw at night. Hopefully if you transition your kitty to half raw, it will be enough to keep her Crystal's in check. If not you might have to move her up to 100% raw. Meat by itself is supposed to be acidic but unless you test the canned food with ph strips you really won't know since they go through processing.
Would pH testing the different foods yield results that correlate with how acidic or alkaline they make urine? Like if she was eating a food that tested 6 for pH, would that generally mean that it should yield urine that is at that sort of pH? See, I feel in over my head with this.

I read somewhere that red meats are more acidic than poultry meats -which is what she's mostly been eating. Do you/does anyone know if there is truth to this? I might get Hound and Gatos lamb instead of the turkey I was going to order from Chewy. I'm also ordering a feliway diffuser. I am reading stress can be a big factor and its possible she's been stressed. It's also possible she is bored as an indoor cat with a lame human who has run out of new interesting games and toys at this point lol :ohwell:
 

kittyluv387

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Yeah I would ask your vet about it. I just read it really does its job in getting rid of the Crystal's. White meat is more natural for a cat than red meat so not sure if you need to switch your cat's entire diet to red meat! Nothing wrong with trying variety though. I'm not sure how practical it is to test cat food cans since who knows if they really stay consistent from batch to batch. I think you should just calm down and take a breather and try to just switch her to partial raw and see how it goes! I recommend boneless raw that uses calcium carbonate as its calcium source. Less room for error. Lots of commercial foods with real bone in them put too much bone which leads to an imbalance. This is because bone is cheap and meat is expensive and they want the biggest profit.
 

fordfairlane

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I just wanted to chime in. I had my cat on a high quality raw food in combo with some canned and he still developed struvite crystals. Every time I’ve asked about it I have been given lectures about feeding kibble. Which I never did! There are other factors for developing crystals, I think stress was the main factor for us, I’m sure genetics can be too. Sometimes it really is nothing you did!
 
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