Ping Pong

Thread view:

Enable EMail Alerts

Start New Thread

Thread rating:

GaDragonfly - 11 Apr 2007 03:26 GMT

Sometimes I feel like the net in a ping pong game. Hobbes to Sam to
Hobbes to Sam.

Last night I noticed Sam in the squat position in the litterbox longer
than usual. When he got out all he left behind was a very small spot
of urine. Hmmmm. Today I got a call from the vet. Hill's is
reimbursing vets $100 for blood work for any pets that were fed Hill's
M/D food and she suggested I bring Hobbes in for testing. You might
remember that all four of mine ate the M/D food for a week before the
food recall. I told the vet about Sam's unusual urine output. She
reminded me that Sam had mild struvite crystals in October and since
he was eating the M/D she suggested I bring him in for testing as well
as a urinalysis. 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. Of course the others are not allowed to eat the C/D
because they don't have crystals and of course Barnabus got a sniff of
the C/D and that is exactly what he wanted. He stuck his furry head
into the bowl and shoved Sam aside so he could get a bite. 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. I know it could have
been worse...much worse actually since we're supposed to be flying to
Tulsa, OK on Thursday night and he could have gone untreated with only
our cat sitter coming in twice a day between Friday and Monday
morning. The vet feels the next 48 hours will be the most critical and
he should be ok by the time we leave and the cat sitter will know to
keep an eye out for any problems. It could have been so much worse.
But poor Sammy, he just can't catch a break.
'
Julie and Sam

Reply to this Message

sam - 11 Apr 2007 04:52 GMT

> Sometimes I feel like the net in a ping pong game. Hobbes to Sam to
> Hobbes to Sam.
[quoted text clipped - 28 lines]
> '
> Julie and Sam

Purrs that Sam continues to feel OK.
Sam, closely supervised by Mistletoe

Reply to this Message

Marina - 11 Apr 2007 06:20 GMT

> But poor Sammy, he just can't catch a break.

Yes, poor Sammy. Lots of purrs coming to him. I know about the feeding
problem, too. It's a constant fight to keep Caliban out of Miranda's food.

Signature

Marina, Miranda and Caliban. In loving memory of Frank and Nikki.
Stories and pics at http://koti.welho.com/mkurten/
Pics at http://s120.photobucket.com/albums/o185/frankiennikki/
http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/frankiennikki/
http://community.webshots.com/user/frankiennikki

Reply to this Message

Inge Grotjahn - 11 Apr 2007 20:06 GMT

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

Signature

CatManiacs World: http://www.gwsystems.com/inge

Reply to this Message

Jack Campin - bogus address - 12 Apr 2007 00:25 GMT

>> 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
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
> it, but the struvite had to be removed. So we searched the internet
> for another opportunity to get rid of the struvit.

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.

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. 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.
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.

> 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).

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

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. In humans,
the distinctive sign of biotin deficiency is sudden greying. It's
very difficult to get biotin deficiency - most nutrition books report
the same case, an alcoholic who lived on a diet of red wine and raw
eggs. Marion here is a dietitian who works with exotic chronic
nutritional problems, so we asked a doctor she works for is he knew
where to get biotin. It was hard to find but he had a bottle of
outdated capsules in a cupboard. We gave Ishmael a couple of human-
sized doses and his fur grew black again immediately. We maintained
him on one capsule every couple of weeks for as long as he was on
the egg-based food.

============== j-c ====== @ ====== purr . demon . co . uk ==============
Jack Campin: 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland | tel 0131 660 4760
<http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/> for CD-ROMs and free | fax 0870 0554 975
stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, & Mac logic fonts | mob 07800 739 557

Reply to this Message

GaDragonfly - 12 Apr 2007 05:27 GMT

On Apr 11, 7:25 pm, Jack Campin - bogus address
<b...@purr.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> 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
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> 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 special is that? I think I would have cried.
Julie

Reply to this Message

Inge Grotjahn - 12 Apr 2007 15:16 GMT

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"
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> 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

Signature

CatManiacs World: http://www.gwsystems.com/inge

Reply to this Message

GaDragonfly - 12 Apr 2007 05:21 GMT

> Am 11.04.2007 schrieb GaDragonfly:
>
[quoted text clipped - 39 lines]
> --
> 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

Reply to this Message

Inge Grotjahn - 12 Apr 2007 14:52 GMT

Am 12.04.2007 schrieb GaDragonfly:

> 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?

Julie, here in Germany you have to have a prescription from your vet
to get the methionine, although it is for humans. We went to a
pharmacy with our prescription. The lady behind the counter wondered,
why the prescription was signed by a vet and we told her the story:-)
She congratulated us on our vet and said, that she doesn't see it
much, that a vet consideres human medicine.

I don't think, that you can buy it free at a pet store.

BTW: giving Bandit the methionine solved the problem of the struvit
much quicker than giving him the diet. Our vet, and of course our
Bandit, is very pleased with the result of the treatment.

> 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.

Here the same. With 11 cats, where 10 are not supposed to eat a diet,
it would have been a hard task to get the feeding done. Our cats are,
as your's, used to have food all the time. Not 2 of them are eating at
the same time.

Purrs to you
Inge and the catgang

Signature

CatManiacs World: http://www.gwsystems.com/inge

Reply to this Message

Annie Wxill - 11 Apr 2007 23:38 GMT

> Sometimes I feel like the net in a ping pong game. Hobbes to Sam to
> Hobbes to Sam.
> > Julie and Sam

Best wishes for Sam to recover rapidly and for you to have a good trip.

Annie

Reply to this Message

polonca12000 - 14 Apr 2007 21:57 GMT

> Sometimes I feel like the net in a ping pong game. Hobbes to Sam to
> Hobbes to Sam.
[quoted text clipped - 28 lines]
> '
> Julie and Sam

Lots and lots of purrs and best wishes for Sammy,
Polonca and Soncek

Reply to this Message