Wellness Complete Health Catfood Questions

[ThornyRidge]

I have a 12 year old indoor male cat who had surgery last year to remove 3 large bladder stones that suddenly came on. He had previously had no urinary issues. Up until last year and the surgery I had always fed Iams cat food with seemingly no problems. Then of course with this came the switch to vet prescribed food which costs not only an arm and a leg but I am on my second kind. First went with the Hills Science Diet urinary prescription.. that was awful.. they ( I have another cat that is forced to eat due to inability to keep foods separate) hated it and hairballed daily on this. so I then went over to Royal canin urinary prescription.. again not much interest in this food.. have mixed it slightly with some blue buffalo and a bit of the Iams that I had left.. anyway I have been hearing so much about Wellness that today I splurged and bought a bag of the Complete Health.. obviously this cat food is pricey but seems to be good stuff.. does anyone know or have experience if this would be ok to use in place of those vet prescribed cat foods for urinary/bladder stone issues that my cat does not seem interested in.. not to mention cost me over 60 bucks a bag!!!!

 

[texasgirl]

I wouldn't want to take the risk of him developing stones again. You might try mixing a little of the wellness into the Royal Canin or getting the canned version of the RC and mixing a little of that in.
IMO the risk of having him go through surgery again isn't worth switching to a less expensive food.
Purina also makes a veterinary line of diets with a urinary formula (can & dry), maybe you can find it locally and see if they had more interest in it.

 

[RabbitMage]

The irony of this is that Wellness makes a better quality food than Iams, Purina, OR Royal Canin.

Find out what it is about the vet diets that makes them suitable for cats with urinary issues. I'd imagine canned food for more moisture, low ash content, maybe slightly lower protein? If you can find a good quality food to match the 'good' parts of the prescription diets with better quality ingredients, bring it up with your vet.

In the meantime, one or two meals shouldn't hurt.

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

we love the wellness brands! excellent all the way around.

 

[lasergrl]

mixing the urinary food with a non urinary presciption food defeats the purpose. If you are going to mix, then you might as well not buy the rx food at all. You could stick with the rx food and give catlax. They dont have to love the food. Actually eating less is better becaue its higher in fat so they dont need as much, but they do need to eat it. If they dont eat for 24 hours they can get liver disease. Being blocked is an emergency situation and can cause death pretty quickly. I wouldnt risk it personally. It should be the canned if at all he'll eat it. Getting moisture into him is the most important thing. Buying an electric cat water fountain encourages more water intake too.
You can teach them to eat two meals a day, that way the other cat can eat something else. With only two cats its just a minor inconveneince once they get used to it.

 

[NellaBean]

Well I am going to buck the system here and admit that I have a cat with multiple medical issues including urinary stones........that I pulled off the rx diet and have been able to keep healthy feeding regular foods.

I had a multi cat household (4 cats) and was not able to keep food separate. Plus he hated the rx food and wouldn't eat enough of it to make any difference. We ended up switching back to "regular" cat food and gave him Methigel daily, to control the urinary issues. Eventually I was able to tweak his diet and lifestyle (I moved cross country and took only him, other cats stayed living with my parents) to wean off the Methigel. He now gets free choice dry food and 2 cans a day of wet food. I also changed his water dish to make him drink more. The addition of the moisture from the wet food, along with the increased water intake from the different bowl (he is picky!) seems to keep the urine moving through him quickly enough to avoid the start of stones.

I would not recommend this without veterinary supervision. He has done VERY well on this for.....2 years now. He is the only cat so if I start to see "small pees" or "sprinkling" in the litterbox, he would go back on the methigel. I once read in a study online somewhere that over 90% of cats who had urinary issues CONTINUED to have them even on a prescription diet if they were fed dry food. Cats who were given canned food still relapses, but it was a much lower percentage....I remember 30-something percent, but not sure if that was the number that continued to have problems or that didn't. The bottom line in everything I read and heard is that one of the ideas behind helping the cat is to limit the amount of time the urine is in the animal....the longer it is in there, the higher chance it will create crystals or stones.

The prescription diet (I believe) is meant to change the PH of the urine, to lower the chance of crystals or stones. My approach was not to change the PH of the urine, but to get it out of the animal as quickly as possible, to lower the chance of crystals or stones. Different approach, same end result (hopefully).


As there are always underlying problems as well as different types of stones/crystals/etc, I would discuss with your vet. For me, I spend probably $50/month on cat food to keep him healthy and happy. But it is still cheaper than the constant vet bills with the stones, not to mention the pain and suffering for him. And boy does he LOVES his canned food. It keeps him peeing well, it makes him happy.....where is the lose lose part of this situation? THE COST is the only downfall....


HOWEVER, if the prescription diet had worked for him I probably would have stuck with it. It DID NOT work for him AT ALL. We were at the point of talking about surgery with the vet. It was a daily struggle where I would rush home from work every day to make sure that he was not blocked again. So I had to search out other ways of MAKING it work. My cat has seizures and is on a twice daily pill to combat that. He has also had intermittent liver issues (possibly related to the phenobarb for the seizures as it goes through the liver, etc etc) that we have had to treat.

Urinary issues are a huge pain, for the cat, the owner AND the pocketbook. But I don't agree with the mentality of certain veteraniarians that the only solution is a prescription diet. My vet was willing to try the regular food plus methigel approach, knowing my cat's history and response (or lack of) to the standard treatment. When I moved cross country, I switched vets and they did not see a reason to continue the methigel as it had been MONTHS since we had any problems. This was with the understanding that I would keep daily watch on his litterbox and eating habits. So far so good! I do have to feed a certain type, brand and flavor of canned food though. I am not one to push one brand over another, so if you want more info on the specifics PM me

Good luck either way. No matter what, your vet should be a part of this decision (although I admit to going to other vets for second opinions if I dont agree).

 

[NellaBean]

Also, forgot to address the real issue.....I was never a huge fan of wellness cat food. My cat DID NOT like the canned. I can't remember if I tried the dry cat....I did try the canned and dry dog food and was not impressed. It is supposed to be super healthy though, my pets just did not like it at all (probably because it is healthy!). The canned was too dry to work well for adding moisture, in my experience.