On Apr 11, 3:06 pm, Inge Grotjahn wrote:
Am 11.04.2007 schrieb GaDragonfly:

The blood work will be back tomorrow, but Sam does
have struvite crystals in his urine. His bladder was medium sized
which I guess means he isn't blocked but he is now on Hill's C/D
formula cat food.

Poor Sam:-( But let me tell you about our Bandit. He had struvite
crystals in is urine about 4 weeks ago. Like your vet, our vet
suggested to feed him Hill's C/D. Unfortunately Bandit wouldn't eat
it, but the struvite had to be removed. So we searched the internet
for another opportunity to get rid of the struvit. We found out, that
the component of Hill's C/D, which is responsible for the
acidification of the urine, is methionine. With this knowledge we went
to our vet and we talked about it. He confirmed, that a diet was not
neccessary in case we could manage to lower the urine's PH by giving
him methionine. We found a drug for humans (Methionin, by Hexal). It's
a pill and Bandit gets half of a pill in the morning and half of a
pill in the evening. We keep the PH of the urine at 5.8 - 6.2. This is
the range, which dissolves the struvit. Since 1 week all his struvite
is gone and Bandit is fine:-) He could eat his beloved Nutro all the
time and didn't have a diet.

We bought litmus-paper (indicator-paper) to check the PH of his urine.
Fortunately it is easy to get a urine sample from Bandit:-) When we
see, that he is on his way to a litterbox, we put a little plate into
the box and Bandit doesn't mind to urinate on the plate.

To get rid of the bladder infection, Bandit had an anthibiotic.

This is going to be a lifetime diet...a lifetime of keeping Barnabus
out of Sam's food. Sam is curled up on his daddy's lap and they're
both sound asleep in the recliner right now. Hopefully we've caught
this early enough that we can prevent any serious problems.

Have a talk to your vet about my post:-)

Btw: Bandit likes his pill wrapped in liverwurst:-)

Get-well-soon-purrs from
Inge and the catgang
--
CatManiacs World:http://www.gwsystems.com/inge

Inge, thanks for the suggestion! This sounds like the perfect solution
to my feeing woes. Is the methionine something you have to get at the
vet or can you buy it at a pet store or pharmacy? I am definately
going to look into this. While Sam likes his C/D food, which is good,
Barnabus and Lacey also like it,which is bad. I hate having to limit
their feeding times as well. They're used to grazing all day and
having the food removed in the morning is a problem.

Thanks again for the suggestion!
Julie