Am 12.04.2007 schrieb Jack Campin - bogus address:

Hills make two different foods for this. The C/D is intended for
maintenance treatment. They have another one (called "anti-struvite"
of similar) intended for short-term use. We had our Ishmael on C/D
for a long time, then they changed the formulation and he'd never
touch it again. (Must have been a different factory - the stuff he
would eat came in modern tins that nested to stack vertically, the
stuff he hated came in old-style non-stacking tins). But he would
atill eat the heavy-duty stuff, so we gave him short courses of
that every so often and kept him on regular catfood the rest of the
time. It seemed to work.

So, you were lucky anyway. Our Bandit refuses Hills at all, no matter
which formula. He prefers Nutro:-( So we had to find another solution
for him. With the methionine he can eat his usual food all the time.
After next week, we can stop giving him methionine on a daily base.
But we will check the PH of his urine on a weekly base. When it gets
to high, we will give him methionine again.

I don't think I've ever seen a cat in so much distress as Ishmael
was with the acute blockage. It took a couple of visits to the vet
before it was sorted.

I know exactly what you mean. Our Owl had blockages twice, but not
from struvite but from oxalate. Oxalate can't be dissolved and has to
be removed by an OP:-( The bad thing about Owl's story was, after his
first bladder-op he had to eat a special diet to prevent the oxalate
to come back. It took exactly 1 year and he was blocked again with
oxalate. After the 2. bladder-op our vet told us, that there can't be
a 3. op, because the bladder of a cat is quite tiny and Owl's bladder
has to much scar tissue to have another op:-( And because the diet
didn't work, he now gets his regular food and we hope, that the
oxalate stays away...

One time, he still had urinary incontinence
when he came home (presumably a result of the catheterization) and
was in a hell of a mess after peeing over himself in the basket.

Yes, the catheterization is very unpleasant for the cat. Pushing the
catheter in and getting it out again damages the ureter and the
bladder:-(

The other cats all shied away from him at first - then his son
Mingus came up to him and snuggled up close to this smelly matted
wreck as if to say "it'll be all right, Dad". It was the most
touching thing I've ever seen a cat do.

Awww, how sweet of Mingus to do that.

We found a drug for humans (Methionin, by Hexal).

Neat. I didn't know you could buy it in sensible quantities.

We didn't know that at all:-) We bought a package containing 50
tabletts in blister strips of 10/strip.

A related tip: some time after this urinary blockage Ishmael's fur
went dirty grey from the roots. After a while I realized that the
C/D food contained a lot of egg, which binds to biotin.

Thank you for this tip. I didn't know that. Here in Germany you can
buy biotin-capsules at the pet-store.

Purrs
Inge and the catgang
--
CatManiacs World: http://www.gwsystems.com/inge