Food question about my diabetic sweetie with history of bladder stones

[DanaM - NYC]

So Cleo had bladder stones about 5 years ago and they completely resolved after being switched to Royal Canin Urinary SO. Now she has diabetes and it has been a challenge to get her blood sugar down. She is now up to 4 units of Lantus twice a day with numbers in the 200's to low 300's. I looked at the carb content of the Urinary SO (only giving her the canned food now) on Dr. Lisa Pierson's website and I feel it is too high(25). I spoke to the vet about switching her to a lower carb food and she is concerned the bladder stones can return if we do that and she has seen it happen before. Does anyone have any experience with this? I am also now feeding her Fancy Feast Classic as a snack in between her 2 meals to lower the carb intake. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[BJM]

Moisture is one of the big reasons to feed canned food and helps reduce the chances of stones.
My housemate's cat, who has had stones removed, has been fine these past 3 years on the Friskies pates we feed.

You might do a screening x-ray every couple of years, just in case.

 

[Wendy&Neko]

I have one diabetic kitty and the other with cystitis. I feed them the same food. Low carb/low phosphorus raw (or wet food) with plenty of water added. Dr. Lisa has a page on Feline Urinary Tract Health and what to feed. Changing to lower carb wet food can make a huge difference in insulin needs, so you might want to do so slowly and monitor carefully.

 

[manxcat419]

So Cleo had bladder stones about 5 years ago and they completely resolved after being switched to Royal Canin Urinary SO. Now she has diabetes and it has been a challenge to get her blood sugar down. She is now up to 4 units of Lantus twice a day with numbers in the 200's to low 300's. I looked at the carb content of the Urinary SO (only giving her the canned food now) on Dr. Lisa Pierson's website and I feel it is too high(25). I spoke to the vet about switching her to a lower carb food and she is concerned the bladder stones can return if we do that and she has seen it happen before. Does anyone have any experience with this?

Actually, I do have pretty much exact experience with this one! Rosa had bladder stones at the very young age of just 4. She was switched (by my vet at the time) to RC Urinary SO dry food, which she was on until early this year as I was also told that taking her off it would cause her more problems very quickly. In January she was diagnosed as diabetic (and yes, I do think the SO food was at least partly responsible for her becoming diabetic). She had also had a couple of UTIs on the SO food, but no return of the stones. She had tested positive for crystals a couple of times, but that isn't always indicative of anything much as, apparently, crystals form once urine is outside the body anyway.

I switched her to Friskies pates after she was diagnosed diabetic (a mixture of the Classic and the Special Diet though the addition of Special Diet is really for our CKD kitty, not directly for Rosa - the vet initially thought she might be headed for kidney problems, but that seems to have resolved since we got her BG down). So far, she has had NO urinary issues - if anything things are better and we don't see the occasional inappropriate elimination from her anymore that we had done previously. I do add water to the pate food as well - initially it was because it was the only way any of our cats would think about eating pate, but since I found out that it's fine to do to hydrate them better, I've continued adding the water as it's good for their health. She's now off insulin and seems healthier than ever. While I'm sure the SO food has it's place, if I was given the option to do things over, I wouldn't have fed it and certainly not long-term as the regular pate type canned food is better for their health AND more cost effective than prescription diet food.

 

[DanaM - NYC]

Thank you all so much for the truly helpful advice! I checked out Dr. Lisa's page on Feline Urinary Health and really learned a lot. I will slowly start to take her off the SO and will monitor her blood sugar in the process to ensure she doesn't start to go too low. Also will add water to her food. She's not going to miss the SO in the slightest now that she's gotten a taste of the Fancy Feast. I also am going to try EVO because their phosphorus level is quite low. Thank you BJM, Wendy&Neko, and Manxcat419. Happy 4th of July from Dana & Cleo!

 

[Meya14]

Did they tell you what kind of stones they were? Struvite stones can happen when there is a subclinical bladder infection because the bacteria change the pH of the urine and the stones precipitate out. The pH would be on a urinalysis if they did one (> than 7.5-8 can indicate issues). Sometimes bacteria don't show up on the urinalysis because they are below the threshold of the test.

 

[DanaM - NYC]

I believe they were struvite stones but can't say for sure. This occurred in 2009 and I was able to dig up her report and it said "Cystic calculi with severe cystitis". Her Urine pH was 7.0 .

 

[Meya14]

Oh I missed the part where the stones were 5 years ago. It's good there hasn't been a recurrence. Stones can be an acute thing due to dehydration + bladder infection or it can be chronic. Good hydration is the key to prevent either of these from happening. In my opinion, finding a low magnesium (the more plants in food the more mag) and low carb food would prevent further stones. The high blood sugars you have are more likely to cause a recurrence of the stones than the food she eats, because they will make her prone to infections due to the extra sugar in the urine. The mineral intake in the food isn't really the cause of stones. It can contribute a little bit, but it's not the main factor.

You can monitor the urine pH at home with urine test strips. If you see an increase in the pH over time, or if the pH is a lot higher than 8, then you need to be on the lookout for stones or infection. It's a good tool to catch things early. Don't get a lot of strips at a time, they go bad quickly.

 

[DanaM - NYC]

Just ordered the pH strips from Amazon. Thanks Meya14!