Well I'm at the end of my bag of Science Diet
CD/S. So it's time to buy more food. Here's my dilemma. Brissle is my
FeLV+ female. Her FeLV- brother Squermie has urine crystal issues. They
are both 8 years old. Squermie was about 2 when he had his urine crystals
episode. It was really bad. He had to stay at the vet twice with a
catheter inserted, once for an entire week. They said if he had another
incident, they would have to "make him a girl". Apparently, girls have
wider tubes and don’t have these problems.
Up until Squermie's incident, we were feeding
them Max Cat. I don't remember which type. But I was warned about
byproducts and the Max Cat said it had no byproducts. So we used it and
paid dearly. After the incident, they have both been eating only Science
Diet CD/S. That was all 6 years ago and Squermie hasn't had another
incident since. So I really don't want to tamper with success. But now I'm
hearing more about how bad Science Diet is with byproducts. Is there a
no-byproduct dry food that's also especially made for urine crystals? I
say "especially made for urine crystals" instead of "low-magnesium"
because I'm not sure if low-magnesium is the only thing that makes Science
Diet CD/S so special. I remember asking my last vet if I could just buy
one of the low-magnesium foods at the pet store. But he said absolutely
no. Only Science Diet CD/S.
I want to avoid feeding them both different
foods. For one, it's soooo much easier to just keep a bowl of food down
and forget about it. That's just always how it's been done with them.
Also, if I give them different food, Squermie will surely get jealous and
start picking on Brissle. I've considered giving Squermie back to the ex.
But if I did that, Brissle would miss him. He can be an ogre at times. But
he's gotten much better with age. I think weighing everything out, it
would be better to keep him. I just have to be real fair about
everything.
Brissle has been doing great. We finished the
VO injections about 2 weeks ago. She's almost back to her normal weight!
She has plenty of energy. It's looking real good! I'll be taking Brissle
to the vet next week for blood tests. One month ago, when this all
started, her HCT was 9.7%. The pink in her nose makes a good visual
indicator of HCT. It's still pretty light. Nowhere near as dark pink as
Squermie's. But on the day I brought her to the vet, her nose was
completely gray! I really don't remember how dark her nose was originally.
I would highly recommend making a mental note or taking a picture of the
pinkness of all your cat's noses, especially the healthy ones, so you have
something to gauge by.
Thanks for listening!
-Kyle
