Urine infection with crystals

[TheresHensInTheSkirting]

Hello, posting for advice if anyone has any please?

My young neutered male cat came down with a urine infection this weekend. He's on antibiotics and metacam.
The urine sample pathology came back with crystals in the urine (as well as markers for infection).
The vet has recommended a special diet for him, but in a multi cat household this might prove problematic.

Has anyone had experience of this and what was the best course of treatment?

Thanks in advance.

The special food, which contains crystal busting stuff (technical term:) ) doesn't have to be given forever. It will be a huge hassle to feed the cats separately, but you will need to do it for a while. (I think a month or so)

After that then the key is to never feed dry food. Feed them all cereal-free wet food if you can (Butchers Classic is cheap and fits the bill). If you really must feed dry then it also needs to be cereal-free and expensive (Applaws for example). But really it's best to avoid dried food as much as you can, and make sure that they never, never have cheap dried food such as Go Cat, as it's that that seems to cause crystals in the first place.

thecatneuterer
Thank you, we have another cat with dietary problems, she is much improved on dry food. If she eats too much wet she has a lot of blood in her faeces.
We used to give them both a mix of applaws dry and gourmet wet.
Now they have a mix of Arden grange sensitive dry and much less gourmet wet. I bet that's causing his issues.
They don't eat straight it away, otherwise I wouldn't have such a problem.
Do you think I could train them to just eat twice a day, then pick it up so they can't share?

So you only have two cats? I was imagining at least 10. In that case feeding separately shouldn't be that difficult, but yes, you would need to take up the dry food.

I'm surprised he's got crystals though as you're feeding good stuff. Any dried food makes cystitis more likely though.

Are they microchipped? Sureflap do microchip feeding bowls and although they aren't cheap they would mean they couldn't eat each other's food.

I hope your boy is on the mend soon.

I didn't know that Pink. That's a really good idea.

Our vet also mentioned the microchip food bowls so I'm looking into them.

Yes just the two ATM, although it feels like 10

I'm looking at a raw food option for them both so they can share, and hopefully to eliminate some of these health problems.
Does anyone have any raw tips for a novice? The frozen nuggets look very expensive

Sorry, posted too soon!
He seems much better thank you, another 10 days of antibiotics but allowed out now.

I think you can also get a product called Cystease, to use in conjunction with Feliway plug ins. A poster on here uses it with success.

I have 2 boy cats, and mix warm boiled water in with their wet food, to ensure they get lots of fluid. I leave dry food - Applaws or Orijen down for them to free feed. I also remove any craps/pee clumps from their tray to ensure they're not crossing their legs, (cats mostly don't like to re-use a tray that already contains pee and poo). They both have out-door access during daylight hours.

We had a neutered boy who developed this urine with blood issue on a diet of dried food. We were given a diet sheet where we could make up food. It involved raw meat.

We found putting the cats back on wet food instead of dried resolved the issue. Lived happily for a decade longer on wet food and never had a recurrence.

Thank you all.

I'm going to keep him on his normal wet food until he's properly recovered. I'm not going to bother with the vets one, I don't think.
From forums and reading around it's fluid he needs.

Then I'm going to slowly switch them on to pre frozen raw.

fetch.co.uk/surefeed-microchip-pet-feeder-296478011?gclid=CLPvqbzYpNICFbEV0wodPx0EOQ

If I had more than one cat I'd definitely think of one of these

I tried Harry on raw, the pre frozen Natures Menu one. He looked at me as if to say 'what do you expect me to do with that?!?' and walked off in a huff. He was back on pouches after that

I've had male and female cats with this problem and the dry prescription food that the vets recommend always works and I've continued to give them this food throughout their lives and they've lived very long lives. One of my female cats is on prescription food for cystitis and she's doing very well on it. I also give my cats tuna in spring water and other wet food.

I normally have 3 cats in my house at any one time and the vets have said there's no harm in all of the cats having the prescription food, even if they're not suffering from the same problem that the food's for. For example one of my cats has prescription food for kidney problems and my other cat loves this food but doesn't have kidney problems and the vet has said that it's perfectly ok for her to eat it, and she's been eating it for 4 years with no problems. My cat with the kidney trouble is nearly 20 and also has hyperthyroidism and mega colon, but these are all under control and he's still going strong, touch wood and whistle.

The other thing you could try is to give them water in a glass bowl or a wide glass, as cats like to drink out of glass vessels, as they like to see through the water. Have a few glasses scattered around the house, but not close to their food, as cats like to drink separately from their food. You should find that they'll drink a lot of water when you do this.

Bought some cat soup which has gone down well upping his fluids should help hopefully.

He's much better now he's allowed out and is off the metacam.

Thanks for all the advice.

Our nervous Boycat, developed this during Fireworks season the first year we had him. After initial feeding of the medicated food, we keep him on wet food, always with additional half pouch of water to make some Felix Soup :D
He gets a handful of biccies every night before bed, so he's not exclusively on wet food. Currently trialling Applaws over Purina One Urinary.
We keep a stash of Cystease in the food cupboard for fireworks season/stressful times, i.e. cattery trips, unusual visitors! He's been totally fine since that initial problem 6 years ago, just his dodgy teeth we worry about now.... I still get a feeling of relief when I see him go for a pee. I tend to get a bit obsessed about the workings of his Urinary Tract if he's been stressed!!!
We could never work out if Feliway/Pet Remedy actually worked or not, we've tried both?! It's hard to quantify a difference :D

Pam

Why don't you get his teeth seen to? They're not going to improve with age.

(Sorry for the sidetrack, OP.)

PS - you might be as well to start a separate thread, Pam - on that issue.

Och no worries about side tracking! We should make a thread about general health concerns
Or use this one.

My sisters cats have all had to have massive dental work. Not sure why she's so unlucky, they're not fed donuts afaik. They all had great results and are much happier.
One of them was about 12 yo and had 9 removed all concerned felt terrible they'd let it get so bad but didn't know the extent of the damage. She's about 14 yo now and totally fine.

I guess that cats are a bit like humans - teeth just not designed by nature to last as long as they're living these days.

Hello!
He gets his teeth done regularly :D It's harder to keep on top of compared his Urinary Issues, less clues! Just when the morning breath gets a bit much, we know he needs a check up and he gets them cleaned/removed as per what needs doing. Due for the MOT this month, so we'll see what he needs doing this time!