From: (jamie)

PawsForThought wrote:
From: (jamie)

That said, my cats *were* very happy and healthy on Science Diet dry
Adult and Sensitive Stomach until they became elderly. The major
disappointment was that several vets told me that a diet of Science
diet dry would prevent FUS/FLUTD, but poor Gideon eventually developed
a bladder full of struvite crystals on it.

Oh dear Sorry to hear about Gideon, Jamie.

Well, he's thankfully had a happy ending after switching vets.

The poor fella was misdiagnosed as arthritis last November, because
he was lurching when he walked with a strange posture of his rear end
kind of hunched up, by the previous quack vet. (The vet who missed
his enormous goiter and a couple of broken teeth, and didn't seem to
think blood tests were in order during 3 visits where I kept bringing
him back for weight loss and not eating enough, when he'd dropped
from 15.5 pounds to under 13 pounds. "It's just the new canned diet.")

When I first took him to the new vet who recently did his thyroid
surgery, she suggested an X-ray to confirm his arthritis, and there
were no signs of arthritis, but his bladder looked as though it was
*full*, and I do mean *full*, of fish gravel. He had been on canned
a few months by then, and had stopped lurching when he walked, so
the stones had likely been even worse last fall. That he was also
developing hyperthyroid and drinking excessively probably protected
him from blockage, but it also masked any signs I might have otherwise
seen of concentrated or bloody urine. He never peed outside the
box, either.

We expected that he would need bladder surgery along with the thyroid
surgery to remove so many bladder stones. But when he had his
pre-op X-ray after the 3 weeks on Tapazole to see if the shadow on
his chest had changed (it was gone), we had a big surprise. He had
somehow managed to dissolve all but a marble-sized cluster of stones.
Apparently the switch to Wellness, acidifying his urine, along with
the excessive drinking, allowed him to dissolve and pee out most
of the crystals. My vet didn't feel it was necessary to surgically
remove the small cluster that was left, that he would be able to pee
them out on his own.

He'd dropped to 10 3/4 pounds by the time he had his surgery.
He had his thyroid and dental surgery on Aug. 31, and 10 days
later his follow-up T4 and kidney levels were fine, and he'd
gained half a pound. My people-scale at home is too inaccurate
to weigh him, but now when I pick him up, he feels like a cat
again, instead of a bird with fur. I'm going to swing him by
the vet's office next week to find out what he actually weighs.

Wow, Jamie, that sure sounds like a lot of crystals, poor boy! I'm really glad
you switched him to Wellness and also found a new vet. Give Gideon a hug from
me.

Lauren
________
See my cats: http://community.webshots.com/album/56955940rWhxAe
Raw Diet Info: http://www.holisticat.com/drjletter.html
http://www.geocities.com/rawfeeders/ForCatsOnly.html
Declawing Info: http://www.wholecatjournal.com/articles/claws.htm