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Adding yet more water to the food should help with the USG. I also have a link somewhere about how to get more fluids into a cat, but the easiest is just to make the food as wet as they'll tolerate.
As for the pH, you can get L-methionine from a health food store and add a measured amount to the food (if you need dosages, I can find that for you). But I would strongly advise only doing this if you can test the urine pH at home, since you need to be sure you aren't over-acidifying.
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So the new food they've been enjoying is the Merrick Thanksgiving Day Dinner, and it's really wet already - it's super goopy. We add a bit more water and try to mash it around (I think there are little cubes of liver in there, and the kitties always leave those behind, for some reason
) to get the pieces more uniform. The kids have always preferred a pate to chunky, but the chunks are so small in this that they don't seem to mind. I have the Nature's Variety LI turkey on order, so we'll put that into the rotation once it arrives.
Yeah I don't think I'd be comfortable dosing them at home - I think DH would have a fit over that, too. The last thing we need is oxalate crystals!
There's no way for me to really check their pH - I can't get down there when they're there, and they're already a bit weird about their box (we've had past incidents with pooping outside the box
), so I don't want to freak them out or discourage their good litter box behavior. Do you know if they ever prescribe L-methionone at the vet's office? Because I'm really curious as to what they'd suggest if the diet change isn't enough to change the pH.
Fitzy has an appointment next Wednesday to have a cystocentesis first thing in the morning - 9am. Hopefully he has a full bladder.
That little dude always has an empty bladder!
The kitties have never looked better!
Their coats are super shiny, they're shedding less, their stress-induced-by-going-to-the-vet dandruff is gone (I swear they start molting the second they get into that vet office). Seriously, their fur is beautiful right now.
Their behavior is the same - sleepy most of the time but really playful and active (like running up and down the stairs full tilt, screeching around the living room, jumping across furniture). Last night I gave them some catnip and I felt like I was watching two stoners - they were rolling around, licking the scratchy pad (where the catnip was), and then they got up and went to their food bowls to eat!
Reminds me of my friends in college.
In any case, I hope their improved outer appearance is indicative of an improvement on their insides, too.
As far as their urine goes - there are huge pee clumps in the litter box - they're urinating more often. I need to be more vigilant and clean after each one goes so I can see exactly who is doing what (I can tell their BMs apart easily but I don't know their pee
).
I think that's it - I guess now it's wait-and-see? I don't know what else I can do at this point. Once Fitzy is tested he'll have been on wet food only for 3 weeks - is that even enough time for his urine to normalize?
Maybe I should wait another week before testing? I don't know. They're both eating low-phosphorous grain-free wet food with water added, which is great, but I really, really hope that just this diet change (and it's a pretty big change) will do the trick.
If one more vet suggests the Rx diet as the "cure" for their pH I'm going to
and you'll probably hear it all the way in Canada.
sugarcatmom - Does anything in Daisy's results look weird/concerning to you? I can read a blood test pretty well but I'm not familiar with urinalysis results.
Everyone cross your fingers and toesies!