Male cat (age 10) with FLUTD (urinary stress) - Food recommendations please!

[Aberchips]

Bit long sorry!! But any advice gratefully received.

Looking for some help & advice from anyone with experience or knowledge of Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease and how to best manage my cat's diet.

My 10 year old male was hospitalised with a blocked bladder last week - very distressing for him & us, after a couple of episodes of what we thought was just cystitus (treated with Feliway Cysteaze & then antibiotics).
He was catheterised & is now home & much better - if still a little sore.

The vet initially prescribed Hills c/d Urinary Stress pouches for him & said that when they sampled the urine when he was in they found Struvite crystals in it which they think caused the blockage.

I've since been reading up on diet & FLUTD and was horrified to discover that feeding "market leading" brands of dry food could be a contributing factor. As far as I can determine I should be feeding a high protein diet with a little grain content as possible & as much water included as well.

I've since switched to Applaws dry (small amounts for them to nibble on during the day) & a mixture of Applaws canned & Hills c/d Urinary pouches with a tablespoon of water mixed in. I'm also giving him maintenance dose of a Cysteaze capsule once a day to help with his bladder lining.

I'm looking at buying some more wet food in bulk for his long term needs, but looking at the ingredients on all the vetinary diets (Royal Canin, Hills etc) they all seem to contain little meat & lots of cereals/ fats/ ash?!!

Is there any point in keeping on with the Hills food or should I just go for a good quality grain free one? If so which one would anyone recommend?

I have another female cat as well so would like to feed them on the same thing (ideally canned wet food with a small amount of dry).

[cozietoesie]

Will he eat pretty well what he's given or is he fussy about his food?

[Aberchips]

He eats most things pretty well cozietoesie I was previously feeding them on Felix/ Whiskas pouches & GoCat so they are hoovering up the Applaws!!

He is slightly overweight too (6kg) so hoping that a better diet nutritionally speaking with help with this too.

[Aberchips]

Update from the vet yesterday to say that his urine samples were clear so no infection. Guess we have to treat it as stress cystitis or caused by my feeding cheap dry food.

Reading through some posts on here am trying them on tins of Butcher's classic with a few Applaws biscuits& gradually weaning them off dry food completely.

[cozietoesie]

I've just always fed wet food because that's what the boys have liked. Although I wouldn't draw any conclusions from it, the only cystitis any have had is that Seniorboy has recently had a small bout of what the vet thinks is bacterial cystitis. He's so elderly though, that his immune system is probably all over the place.

[Lonecatwithkitten]

Have all the structure crystals gone from his urine? If not you need to feed s/d till we have dissolved all of these. Once all the crystals are dissolved the evidence is that a 100% wet food diet is as good as a prescription diet.
If you switch away from the prescription diet before they are all dissolved then there is a risk that he will block again.

[cozietoesie]

There's almost an implication there, Lone, that a wet food diet from the start will ease any issues/prevent them from starting?

[Lonecatwithkitten]

Not necessarily Cozie the vast majority of dried foods are fine, but there are a couple Go-Cat being at number 1 which are implicated in causing bladder crystals.
High quality dried food for example Arden Grange is not linked to bladder crystals.

[cozietoesie]

That will be a relief to the many people feeding dried.

I don't but that's down to circumstances. (They don't like it so who am I to argue? )

[StopLaughingDrRoss]

My boy had crystals and he's been on special urinary food for just over a year - he was on a dreadful diet of crap dried food and crisps when I rehome him.

He does love dried food so he was on Royal Canon Urinary S/O which completely sorted him out which can be bought in bulk 'quite' cheaply online.

I have a thread on here called Wet Food and Loose Poo (I think) and there's a great link in there about the benefits of wet food which could be worth a read.

You could always add a bit of water to the wet food as well to make sure they're getting plenty..

[Aberchips]

Thanks everyone. Lone according to the vet there were crystals in the first samples they took when he went in. I'm presuming (which could be wrong) that after they catherised him & flushed everything out they should be gone?

There is definitely no infection so rules that out as a cause. I am adding a little water to his wet food now & he seems to be going outside & using his litter tray for wees(good volume & no straining/blood) so fingers crossed there aren't any recourrences.

Is s/d food different to c/d food? forgive my ignorance!

Ladycat is v unimpressed by the disappearance of her beloved dry food! Boycat just wolfs anything!

[Lonecatwithkitten]

Aber a follow up sample to check whether there are crystals present after a certain period of time is good. S/d is for dissolving struvite, c/d is for maintenance to prevent recurrence after dissolving struvite or surgical removal of calcium oxalate.

[HermioneJeanGranger]

Ours had crystals, and he's now on Royal Canin Urinary S/O (same as Ross) and he's been clear since August. We feed him Felix Sensations as his wet food and make sure there's plenty of water available.

He still gets treats (bits of chicken/tuna from us and dreamies twice a week) but the biscuits seem to have really helped him. He's never had another incident and considering he blocked twice in 24h and was at the vets five days, we're pretty lucky to even have him with us.

The vet said he had one of the worst cases they'd ever seen and he had blood in his pee for a good two weeks after surgery. Luckily (after lots of antibiotics, check-ups and metacam) he's now fit and healthy and passed his recent health check with no issues :)