suggestions? food switch and UTI

[roisin and fax]

Evening all,
I am making the switch with Fax to EVO 95%. We have another cat who had a UTI a 4 or 5 years ago. It was an emergency call and they didn't test for crystals. He is currently being fed Hill's urinary wet food w/seafood. Before that incident both cats were free fed Wellness dry.

After making the switch with both cats to a vet prescribed urinary dry food, Fax became diabetic and Angus now has a slow colon requiring lactulose twice a day. I feel that all of their health problems began after we moved away from the Wellness to the clinic food. I would really love to have both cats on the same food with a little higher quality ingredients.
Do you have any thoughts/opinions on switching the non-diabetic UTI boy over to the EVO 95% along with Fax? Does anyone have experience with a similar situation?

 

[underdawg]

Re: suggestions? food switch

I had a Himalayan who was 19 when she died. She had urinary tract problems and ended up eating only Hill's c/d wet and dry. She would have a problem a few times per year usually when I was gone. After a few years with her problems, i determined that she would have a problem when she ate fish cat food or when she was stressed when I would leave her alone for a night or two when I had to go out of town. I have 4 tuxedos now who were feral. Andy is stressed all the time and has not been socialized like he should have so he does not feel comfortable around us like the others do. He acts like a new cat in the household with us although he gets along fine with his siblings. When Andy was about 6 1/2, he was diagnosed with calcium stones in his bladder and had to have PU surgery. I never feed them fish because of what i learned with my Himalayan but when Andy had his problems, i put them all on Hill's c/d and they ate mostly the dry food with a can at night. Anyway, after about 1 1/2 years dealing with his problems, his brother Bo was diagnosed with diabetes last fall and was off insulin in only a few weeks. (I now wonder if the c/d had something to do with Bo developing diabetes since he was overweight.) During that time, I found this message board and really discovered the importance of putting Bo on a high protein diet. For a few weeks, I tried to feed Andy c/d while Bo ate m/d but each one wanted the other one's food. I ended up moving them all to m/d. Then I learned more about the quality of protein in canned food and changed them all to Fancy Feast but at least one of them was allergic to the food - probably the beef. I also learned that even the FF chicken had fish listed as an ingredient. Since I knew that fish was a problem for my Himalayan, I changed them all to Wellness Chicken and Wellness Turkey only. I give them two 5.5 oz cans at each meal - morning and evening - and add about 1/3 to 1/2 cup of water to the food each time. I hardly ever see anyone drinking water since I add water to the food. Even though I thought I was probably killing him by taking him off the c/d, Andy has done great on the high protein food. I think the main thing to remember is to control any stress, give absolutely no fish, avoid any vitamin C supplements, and make sure that he has a lot of water. It has been a long 2 years since Andy was diagnosed and it has been a hard road learning more about what he needs and what Bo needs. I don't know if Hill's was actually the problem, but i know that dry food was so no one gets anything dry now except for some freeze dried chicken as snacks. So far so good with all of my cats. I don't know if any of this will help you but I hope that it does. Good luck.