Cat with crystals help please

pepomntpat

I am at my wits' end really.

Charm has had some weird crystals for the last three years. She had surgery once two and a half years ago to remove a very large crystal that was some weird combination of struvite and urate crystals. The vet put her on Hill's L/D which she refused to eat. We were feeding her a low protein wet food (also Science Diet) but she stopped eating that too.

We started feeding her Wellness again because she lost a LOT of weight.

Now the crystals are back. She has bloody urine. This time the vet says they are just struvite which would be good news if she would eat the damn food. She did not eat more than a bite for the last three days. She stopped showing up for meals and I had to track her down and lock her in the bathroom with her food to get her to eat even a tiny bit. She stole my other cats' breakfast this morning. 

I am not sure what to do to manage this. I am hesitant to do another surgery considering she won't eat a maintenance diet. We have three other cats, a dog and a toddler. It's expensive. If I knew she'd be all better I'd be all for it, but she will just get them again. I don't know what to do... 

mainerocks

Does she eat dry food also?  Can you increase her water? A fountain and more bowls around the house? Will she eat the Wellness if you mix water into it?

pepomntpat

I do have water everywhere. I will try adding water to her food. She eats wet and dry.

mainerocks

Can you get her on more wet and less dry?  When Lily got crystals, I looked all over for info and it was hard to find good stuff, but I really liked this site:

http://catinfo.org/

It's from a vet and she goes into detail about why a wet food diet (or raw) can eliminate the crystal issue.

I tried SO hard to get Lily on all wet, but it didn't work. At least now she'll take a little, but I just adopted two new cats this year and I'm giving them a lot of wet from the start. 

 

pepomntpat

Thank you for this! I will work on transitioning her.  She is picky, but it can't be any worse than refusing to eat for three days.

Kaiene

I don't have any experience with crystals, but one of my cats is/was super picky about her wet food.  She did not like the p?t? (smooth) style wet food, so we had to buy a chunkier kind.  We had good luck with Weruva, but I don't know if that meets the requirements for your kitty's dietary needs.

SallySparrow

mainerocks:

Does she eat dry food also?  Can you increase her water? A fountain and more bowls around the house? Will she eat the Wellness if you mix water into it?

Penny is on a maintenance diet for bladder stones. She doesn't love her food, but she eats it as long as we add (warm) water to it. We don't feed her dry at all anymore. So basically this was going to be my suggestion, too.  

justaname

So the characteristics of a maintenence diet include low magnesium and an acidifier (for struvite crystals). You can get the same effect by feeding a high quality wet food that has low Mg and adding some methigel. I chose Weruva paw lickin chicken when my cat had crystals because it had the lowest Mg levels I could find. Avoid foods with any type of fish protein in it. You can buy Methigel online pretty cheap. I did extensive research on this when the vet recommended the SD crap because I couldnt bring myself to feed it. Feel free to PM if have any more questions! Good luck!