Blog-friends, can you help? My bestie Kim asks for your experience in treating dogs or cats suffering from struvites.
Bugs is concerned.
Barney feels boxed in.
If you can help, would you please comment? Or re-post this – it would be great to get answers from a wider pool than just this little blog.
Kim is very knowledgeable. She’s used homeopathic treatments; raw diet; and supplements of glucosamine, cranberry, and cider vinegar. Even so, her two beloved companions – Ivy the lab and Stewie the cat – are having urinary-tract troubles.
Ivy and Stewie together
artwork courtesy our good friend HereThereBeSpiders
The guy in the next shot looks so much like Ivy, I bought the card to surprise Kim. But I figure the spoiler here is worth it. Maybe tennis balls are the problem. Except that Stewie doesn’t do tennis balls, and she has struvite trouble too.
Is it something in the water? Except Stewie’s sister Meezer doesn’t have the problem . . . . .
Your help would be greatly appreciated.
catself 
Guess the best thing is to switch to special diet food…??
Boy o Boy that sure looks like BooBoo! Though I would not put it past Stewie to play with a tennis ball…she has her own squeaker ducky. Our heartfelt thanks for any help you all can give.
http://www.kittyblog.net/2015/02/what-i-know-what-you-might-want-to-know.html
L-methionine is her friend.. as is marshmallow root, or cornsilk..
Glucosamine will help soothe the bladder walls, but ONLY if the irritation has been removed. Cranberry helps by bringing d-manose (and it is preferable to just use the manose and skip the cranberry) to the party – which only helps if there is an actual active infection as it keeps bacteria from adhering and colonizing on the bladder walls.. Vinegar again helps with infections.. not crystals.. and generally is not appealing to cats so the stress of having it added to the food can cause additional problems.. http://www.livestrong.com/article/467581-is-apple-cider-vinegar-good-for-a-uti/
this is why I have such a serious problem with calling any bladder issue a “UTI”, most cases of struvies are sterile, meaning there is no infection at all, so prescribing antibiotics or using antibacterial products is pointless and actually harmful to the pet.
I do love that drawing, thanks for reminding me about it!
Spot (Bengal) got them when he was less than a year old. Ever since, he’s been on Prescription Diet C/d dry, and he has never had a recurrence. I’m pretty sure he’s 14 this year. He does now have kidney failure, but nothing to do with struvites.
Never seen it in dogs.
My experience is lacking with any kidney stone/crystal problem for any of my cats, but I recommend highly getting lots of fountains to get them to drink as much as possible so that the crystals don’t occur. Less concentrated urine, less chance of an issue. And the bubbling water all over is a nice accent…I used to have a fountain before the cats decided to drink from it exclusively.
Love that portrait!
There are some great suggestions — from the herbals to the fountain (both which I use)… I just had an interesting episode re: crystallization / stones / UTIs, with a cat who’s had them his whole life. Turns out that it was a bout of PANCREATITIS — which has different causes in cats and dogs (dogs are easier to figure out of course). At first he was diagnosed as diabetic… Turns out the pancreatitis caused increased sugar in the blood, and also caused a UTI with small stones. Vets are very quick to diagnose a straight UTI (because it’s a lot easier!) — but there are many other potential possibilities. (This statement coming from 2 different vets.)