Switcing a struvite cat to raw?

[Deleted]

I have a beautiful 2 year old siamese cross kitty cat named Marbles who is incredibly prone to struvite crystals and I've been toying with the idea of switching her to raw for a while now.

The problem is that her crystals are more or less a genetic issue and she's had them since she was born. She was actually surrended to the Humane Society because she wasn't peeing in the litter box and the jerkface owners decided they'd rather surrender her than get a simple urinalysis done (which revealed evidence of a raging bladder infection and TONS of crystals). Oh well - their loss.

My concern is that the multiple vets I've talked to (Yes I know vets know basically nothing when it comes to nutrition ) say she has to stay on her special prescription diet or else she'll flare up again. I've actually tried taking her off of it and unfortunately this is exactly what happened... but maybe I'd have better luck with raw?

She's currently on Medical Urinary SO diet, which works by keeping the urine pH acidic enough to dissolve the crystals and by making them drink A LOT of water and pee A LOT to keep flushing out their system. Which, yes is a feasible way to treat the crystals, but is it the best way? I don't personally think so and the food is really high and fat and there's no low fat alternatives and my cat is getting HUGE on it.

She eats 50% wet food and 50% dry food but is a little mooch and will eat ANYTHING she can get her paws on (popcorn, chicken noodle soup, I even caught her stealing a rib off the counter once). She's also recently taking to stealing the ferret's freeze-dried Wysong Archetypal 1 when I'm not looking and eating moths that she catches in the house. So I have no doubt she'd switch to raw... I'm just worried about the crystals.

I'd feel a lot better if I could find a vet to back me up or at least be willing to give it a try because I would need to test her urine frequently and make sure the raw diet wasn't making it worse. But that's going to be impossible to find.

She actually currently doesn't have any struvite crystals (at least according to the last urinarlysis done a few weeks ago) so now would be a good time to switch, but I'm super nervous. I've been warned by a couple vets not to mess with it and it's scary going at it alone.

I'm thinking maybe just a freeze dried raw? I'm not sure if I want to go the frankenprey or whole prey route with her.

How are cats with bones? Just little ones? How much do they need?

I'd have to make sure I didn't mess up the calcium/magnesium ratios because that causes crystals too.

I'm just really nervous in messing with her bladder health. But at the same time, I'm fairly confident this could fix her problem.

Any advice is appreciated

[Sherry]

One of my cats was REALLY prone to those. They subsided when we switched him from kibble to wet. And NOT the vet food! So I imagine raw would work the same way as far as the crystals go. Why not go with frozen raw? More moisture, and less likely to cause problems.
As for bone in, some do really well with a ferret style diet. Others need a lot less. With one of mine(when attempting the raw switch) we found even straight commercial frozen raw was too much bone for him. Same as ferrets- it varies by the animal.
Is she on free feed? If so, remove it and give set feeding times for her. Gives a bit of an appetite, and makes them more likely to eat while they have the opportunity.
Personally, I'd ditch the kibble entirely. It caused nothing but problems for mine. Even just a good quality canned is far better than that. But if you start mixing in a bit of raw with her canned, she should tolerate it well.

[Deleted]

www.smallanimalchannel.com/media/ferrets/ferret-health/bladder-stones.aspx.pdf

This article is really good. Read the section on struvite crystals



Struvite Stones

Three main factors cause struvite stones: diet, urinary pH and bacterial infections of the bladder.

The two main components of the diet involved in struvite stone occurrence are the source of the protein and the level of magnesium. The source of the protein is important because this affects the pH of the urine. Animal-based protein such as chicken, turkey, pork, egg and fish have the amino acids methionine and cystine in them.

These two amino acids contain sulfur. When these two sulfur-containing amino acids are metabolized, they produce sulfuric acid. When sulfuric acid is excreted into the urine, it lowers the pH of the urine. On the other hand plant-based protein like corn gluten, wheat gluten,
soy protein isolates and soybean meal do not have those two sulfur-containing amino acids. Thus plant-based protein does not acidify the urine, and the pH of the urine raises higher than normal (above 6.4). Struvites are unlikely to form when the pH of the urine is acidic (below 6.4).

Struvites are composed of three things: magnesium, ammonium and phosphate; therefore, avoid excessive amounts of these three things in the ferret’s diet. Magnesium is the most important one to limit.

As previously mentioned, urinary pH is an important factor in struvite formation. When a ferret eats a diet with mainly plant-based protein, the pH of the urine rises above the normal range. A pH above 6.4 can cause struvite crystals and stones to form. This is why it is so important to feed a high-quality, meat-based ferret food or kitten food instead of a
low-quality, plant-based non-ferret food.

Bacterial bladder infections from Staphylococcus or Proteus species can raise the urine pH to 8 or above. Struvite stones can form in less than one day when the pH is that high.

[Deleted]

That's really interesting Sherry, but makes perfect sense! I would just be worried about her teeth with her just eating canned food, but really it's no different than commercial raw which doesn't clean teeth either. That being said, there's other ways to clean her teeth and the crystals are the number one concern. How did you know there was too much bone - were the stools dry and hard?

Thanks Jackie, that's awesome info!

I will do some reading and weigh my options.

Even just Canned food would mean she'd lose weight because it doesn't have the carbs that kibble does.

[Sherry]

He became constipated. I actually had to give him some glycerin(per vet advice) to "unplug" him.

[Deleted]

Did you give him nature's variety by chance Sherry? A while back when I emailed them to ask the percentages of meat/bone/organs, they wouldn't tell me exactly, but bone content is as high as 15% in some of the formulas. I think overall, Primal is a better commercial raw brand for cats (they also don't gimp on information on the contents/percentages)... that's just my opinion though ;D

[Sherry]

No, it was Urban Carnivore actually. But some cats need as little as a couple of chicken necks a week.

[miamiferret2]

just use the wysong urine biotic ph stuff from and put it in her raw meats. they have one for struvite stones:
www.wysong.net/products/pH-dog-cat-supplement.php

they have a different one for oxalate, urate or cystine stones.

[Deleted]

Huh. I didn't even know they made something like that! Thanks