What really worked to heal my cat from stones!

She's been through quite alot in a short period of time!

Disclaimer: Though I have worked in a vet hospital, I’m an not a veterinarian. I am in no way recommending that you try what I tried to help my cat. It is very important to take the cat to the vet if there are problems, especially for correct diagnosis. It’s very important no matter what you choose to use to bring your cat back to health.

In the past few weeks, there has been alot of stress in the house. My mother started chemo for her third fight with breast cancer. I was working 12-14 hours per day to prepare for my very first craft show. During this time, my cats were really feeling the chaos.

My girl peed on the wall! She made sure I was looking too! I know that when your cat pees anywhere but the litter box, you have a problem! The message got across to me. Not only did she pee in front of me, it was bloody! This is where I began to freak out!

Why? I had no idea how I was going to pay for a vet visit. It has been hard enough to eat well on a budget, for me and my cats. Somehow, I did manage to get it together and find the money to take my cat to the vet. I was told that my cat may have stones. The procedures were starting to get astronomical in cost, and my head started to spin. We paid for what we could afford, and went home, although they wanted to do more tests.

In the past week, I have learned a great deal about urinary stones in humans and animals. I have to say that before you try any particular product, you need to know what kind of stones your cat has. It’s very important!

Most of the time, humans have stones because their diet is too acidic. Foods that produce acid are meats, sugar, dairy products, coffee, and chocolate. These foods show up on our plates DAILY, when they really should be limited to occasional treats. Anyway, olive oil and lemon juice or organic apple cider vinegar have been used with great success to dissolve stones in humans. Lemons and (organic) ACV are alkaline, thereby dissolving stones.

Cats, on the other hand, have been designed to be strict carnivores. They are the ones who can eat meat all day and everyday. Their bodies actually prefer an acidic diet. However, cat food is formulated with grains and only flavored with meat, which makes their digestive systems more alkaline. It’s bad news, because cats develop struvite stones from a diet that’s too alkaline.

If you try to use olive oil and lemon juice or (organic) ACV to dissolve struvite stones in cats, you will only be making the problem worse! You’ll just be adding more fuel to the fire, the stones will not dissolve, and your cat may be in a very serious situation.

You will need something that makes things more acid. 100% cranberry juice (with no added anything) or cranberry capsules will provide that needed acidic level to dissolve struvite stones. I had my girl on organic ACV and saw nothing, despite the success rate I read about here. When I switched to using cranberry juice, within just a few hours, I saw four hard white things that were kicked out of the litter box! I placed them in a bag for analysis by the vet!

Struvite stones are the most common in cats, especially ones that are 7 years and younger. I was pretty sure my cat had struvites because I have fed her the exact same food from the first day I got her. A dry food that is suppose to be ‘premium’ with a premium price tag to match!

Cats can have calcium oxalate stones if their diets have already been modified to account for struvite stones. So if you have had problems with stones before and your vet has prescribed an anti- struvite diet (usually called s/d) and your cat has stones again very quickly, you need to find out what these stones are!

Stones main culprit is food, the wrong kinds of food, in people and pets. I’ve always said that 99% of health problems usually start with what you eat on a daily basis. Because my cats depend on me for their nutritional needs, I’m the one that is responsible for making sure that they get the food that will keep them in optimum health. I’ve learned alot about what I need to feed my pets.

Dry cat food is very dehydrating for cats. The prey that they would catch in nature is almost 70-80% water. Dry cat food is only 10% water. It makes their urine more concentrated! No wonder cat pee smells so bad! It’s said that all cats have to do to combat the dehydration is to drink more water. But, here is the kicker, cats are not designed to drink lots of water! Their bladders are not big enough and their kidneys get super stressed when there is too much water going through their system. There is a very high rate of kidney failure in cats here in the US. In contrast, it’s said that in Europe, this is not a problem because cats there are fed wet food.

So, I’m making the gradual switch to canned food. Now, instead of wet food being a treat, dry food will be the treat. I know that dry food is formulated to give cats the full range of vitamins and minerals they need, so I will need to do more research and more label reading to find the best wet cat food that’s not too junky!