My 4 year old kitty, Roxy, is a recovering bladder stone survivor. She had 5-6 crystallite stones in her bladder that were removed in January of this year. She has been on a raw diet ever since, exclusively. She eats the quail recipe from Primal Foods. I have noticed, though, that her water intake has gone to zero since starting the raw diet. I have been adding 6-8 teaspoons of water to her raw food every serving to make up for it. I also tried a Cat-It water fountain and she will have nothing to do with it. So, we are one year out from Roxy having had calcium oxalate stones removed and so far no recurrences, based on the rechecks which include radiographs and urinalyses. Your veterinarian is doing the right thing to monitor Roxy carefully and include x-rays as part of that monitoring, as urinalyses alone cannot rule in or rule out bladder stone recurrences. It is my experience, and that of many other practitioners, that when cats are placed on a meat-based, water-rich, raw, canned or home-cooked, balanced diet, they drink little or no water at all.

This is normal for cats, as they evolved as carnivorous predators in a desert environment. Their physiology adapted to obtaining the water they needed via their diet, which naturally consisted of small mammals, birds, even reptiles and the occasional insect, as the desert does not have the puddles, streams, ponds or rivers so common in other types of climates. Adding extra water to the diet of cats who have had urinary crystals or stones cannot hurt, provided the cat doesn't mind it and is consuming enough of the balanced food to maintain a healthy body weight. Indeed, it may help, as diluting the concentration of the cat's urine will lessen the ability of the most common types of urinary minerals, calcium phosphate and magnesium ammonium phosphate, AKA struvite, to form into crystals or stones. The catchy phrase "The solution to pollution is dilution!" applies here. This is why dry foods, even prescription dry diets for urinary crystals, are never the best choice, as they contain almost no water at all.

When cats are on dry food diets, they will drink water, but they often do not drink enough to keep their bodies optimally hydrated or produce slightly diluted urine. There are numerous prescription canned foods that veterinarians use to try to control urinary crystals and stones, but often the same thing can be accomplished with balanced raw or cooked diets, either homemade or commercially prepared. Most prescription canned foods contain fractionated grain products such as corn starch and corn gluten, which, in some cats, are not digested or metabolized properly. We have also learned, the hard way, that by formulating one type of food to prevent one type of crystal or stone, we end up pre-disposing cats to other types of crystals or stones. Nearly all commercial cat foods acidified their formulas to try to prevent struvite stone formation, and now there is an epidemic of calcium oxalate stones as a result, as they tend to form in more acidic urine. The lesson in all of this is that dietary pH is not the whole answer to the problem.

It Started With a Caracas Cat Named CaterpillarFeline Cystitis and Bladder/Kidney StonesFeeding for Urinary and Kidney HealthAnswers: The Paradox of Prescription Diets 1. Ingredient List, Hill's Prescription Diet® c/d® Multicare Feline Bladder Health with Chicken. Ingredient List, Royal Canin® Veterinary Diet Feline Urinary SO in Gel Canned Cat Food. Ingredient List, Pro Plan® Focus Adult Urinary Tract Health Formula Chicken Entrée Canned Cat Food.Homes For Sale In Kenny Lake Ak 2. Peter J. Markwell, C. Tony Buffington and Brigitte H.E. Smith, "The Effect of Diet on Lower Urinary Tract Diseases in Cats," The Journal of Nutrition 128, no. 12, December 1, 1998, 2753S-2757S.Labor Cost To Install Window Blinds 3. Brigitte H. E. Smith, Abigail E. Stevenso, and Peter J. Markwell, "Urinary Relative Supersaturations of Calcium Oxalate and Struvite in Cats Are Influenced by Diet," The Journal of Nutrition 128, no. 12, December 1, 1998, 2763S-2764S.Pool Homes For Sale Lakeland Florida

petMD BlogsWritten by leading veterinarians to provide you with the information you need to care for your pets. Home » Blogs » The Daily Vet < Previous Post Next Post > “The solution to pollution is dilution” is the phrase we veterinarians now use to explain how to prevent urinary crystal and stone formation. Time, observation, and studies have shown us that there are no magical diets for solving this problem and that water consumption is key. Different types of crystals and stones form depending on whether the urine is acidic or alkaline. Special diets limit certain minerals and manipulate the ingredients to create a urine pH (measurement of acidity or alkalinity) that is unfavorable for crystals and stones to form. Those of you with pets that have had multiple surgeries to remove bladder stones are well aware of the limitations of these diets to successfully prevent stone formation. The answer appears to be water, H2O, and more water. The more dilute urine is the less likely minerals can clump together to form crystals and stones, no matter what the urine pH.

This knowledge is extremely important for cat owners but is also a major problem for them. Cats are extremely thirst tolerant. They are also capable of conserving body water by concentrating their urine much greater than dogs or humans. These evolutionary adaptations make sense for a carnivore that evolved in a dry, desert climate. Cats obtain most of their water from their prey. Rodents, birds, and small reptiles are 60% water! What this means is that cats are much less likely to seek sources of water even when their body needs it. This is the main reason they are so susceptible to urinary crystals and stones. The more concentrated the urine the more likely minerals can become crystals and eventually stones. This has been the major reason that special dry diets have such variable results with preventing urinary crystals and stones in cats. These diets only contain 10% water. So how do you make a cat drink more water? But you can get more water into them by changing their diet.

I have spent my entire veterinary career trying to convince cat owners that a wet food diet was more important than the brand of diet for cats with a tendency to form urinary crystals. More water and dilute urine are for more important than the urine pH and ash content of the diet. In fact, we now know that the ash content of the diets is largely an irrelevant concern. Preliminary results from recent research by veterinary teams in France and Germany demonstrate this. The scientists compared the urine of cats fed a wet food, a homemade poultry and rice with zucchini diet, a dry food with zucchini, and a dry food without zucchini. It is not clear if zucchini was added to the diets to increase the water content, the fiber content, or both. The findings suggested that wet and homemade diets were more effective for preventing calcium oxalate crystal formation. Calcium oxalate is presently the most common crystal and stone found in cats. Their findings were mixed with regards to struvite crystal prevention.

Experience with my homemade diets in dogs has shown great success for those suffering from struvite and oxalate crystal formation. In fact, it is possible to formulate a homemade recipe that is virtually oxalate free. Without any recipe manipulations, we have been successful in dissolving kidney and bladder struvite stones and preventing the recurrence of both struvite and oxalate crystals. I attribute the success primarily to the water content of the homemade diets for struvites and the combination of water and ingredient selection for oxalates. The take home for those of you with cats and dogs that are urine crystal formers is to increase the amount of water in the diet. That can be achieved easily by adding water to their dry and wet foods. Dog owners may want to consult with their vets about the amount of salt to add to the diet to drive thirst and additional water consumption. Use salt with caution in cats due to their natural thirst tolerance. Your vet may have other suggestions for increasing daily water consumption for your cat.