There are a number of diets designed to help with uti The better quality ones are expensive. This is a quality products. If you find it on the internet at a better price you will be fortunate because the mark-up on food is very small and the cost of shipping makes it difficult to sell on line at a profit. The retailer I would guess made $3.00 off this product. Remember the goal is to prevent your cat from having an additional uti which will save you money in vet visits and medication.

Also many of these cats benefit from Bladder Strength a supplement produced by Vetri-Science Labs designed to maintain a healthy bladder environment.

My mom's cat Speck had a UTI so bad (males have more serious issues because of their anatomy - longer urethra)that he required a catheter and a hospital stay.

To keep his system in better shape, he now gets half a tablet per day of Methio-Form (DL-methionine) ground up and mixed into his food, I think that this keeps the ph of his bladder/urine from forming the crystals that block the urethra, a big problem for males with UTI. Every 3 days he gets a quarter tab of a steroid - maybe for inflammation? You could ask your vet about these things, see if they might help your kitty.

As for food, my impression was that you just had to feed them a low ash (manganese) formula, which I believe 9-lives makes, and it isn't that expensive, maybe just a little more than regular cat food.

So far, Speck is doing well. It has been a year, and I think he had one little flare up, but otherwise, the medications he is on, which are not that expensive, are keeping things running smoothly!

It is in my opinion that all commercial cat foods are crap, and if you research the ingredients and where they come from, you will probably agree. It does not surprise me that pets have more cancers and other illnesses today than ever before. I feed my kitty a more natural diet - one dry food we like is California Naturals, and also one by Natures Variety. These are lower in or have no ash as well. They run about $8 to $10 for a 5 lb bag, which lasts quite a while when you only have one cat and that cat also eats canned food. Most nicer pet stores carry these brands, not sure if you will find them at places like Petsmart, or at the local grocery.

I know that if you email Natures Variety, and say you would like to try it, they used to send you a coupon by mail for a free 5lb bag....they probably still do it, so that would be a good way to try it. My dog likes Natures Variety too.

Good Luck to you

There is a HUGE difference between regular cat food and any prescription cat food designed to manage urinary tract disease. HUGE. If your vet recommends a prescription product, giving him regular cat food is just going to make his problems worse. Prescription urinary diets are specifically formulated to dissolve certain stones and to prevent the formation of all types of stones. Regular cat food, even those designed for urinary tract health, cannot do that. It is quite a bit more complicated that simply being low ash. ALL cat foods are now low ash, and many are produce a slightly acidic urine which is good for preventing struvite stones. However, most cats are now producing calcium oxalate stones because of the regular cat food. Only prescription diets can control the formation of BOTH types of stones.

Your options for urinary tract disease are few: Royal Canin urinary 33, Hill's c/d multicare, Eukanub St/Ox, Iams (check with your vet which one is OK for your cat), and Purina UR St/Ox. I would review the ingredients in each diet and decide which is best. The ingredients are different in the dry and canned formulations; many of the canned varieties are preserved with BHA/BHT which is not safe in any amount IMHO. Most of the dry formulations are preserved naturally. You can try price-shopping the different brands, but check with your vet on which formula to buy first. Giving the wrong one can make urinary tract problems MUCH worse.

Giving a cat steroids puts him at risk for diabetes, increased risk of UTIs, and generally has adverse side effects on every single body system. In addition, recent studies have shown that steroids have no effect on feline lower urinary tract disease (FLUTD). I avoid steroids unless absolutely necessary in all cases.

DL-methionine is a urinary acidifier. You do not use it in conjunction with a prescription diet because it just screws up the pH.

I wish I could help with getting the best price. My Max(Lab) had struvite stones and required a dissolution diet (Hills s/d) for 6 months, but I got it through school at a ridiculously cheap price so I never checked elsewhere.
I now make Max's food because he has so many health issues (one kidney, mild heart disease, recurrent struvite stones, food allergies) that no one food would work. I went to a veterinary nutritionist who used the BalanceIt program to formulate a homemade diet for him. He is doing great on it, so it is worth every penny and all the time it takes to cook for him. It may be cheaper to cook for your kitty, plus you know that all ingredients are safe and wholesome. Your vet can use the BalanceIt program for a fee, which I am sure would be passed on to you. It's not that expensive though. Even at the vet school, where everything costs more than it should, a nutrition consult with diet formulation is only $55 for clients.

I hope the new food prevents all of your kitty's problems.

The food costs way less than emergency visits to the vet for blockage.

Meghane-
Are you a vet? You seem very knowledgable. It surprises me that methods of treatment would be so different from one vet to the next, but obviously that is the way it is. When opinions differ so greatly, how do you know which one to trust? Our vet is very high priced, and on the younger side so not so long ago he was in school... Possibly the side effects or negative results of using a steroid are small compared to the damage that a UTI can cause in a male cat. This is the attitude with alot of medicines, for both people and animals, I don't think there is one medication out there that does not have side or adverse effects.

I've also questioned my own vet about the higher quality and/or "prescription" cat food, and was told that they are all pretty much the same, except for all the claims on the label and the price of course, and that with a male cat especially, to just get the food with the lowest ash. Other than that opinion, which you would think you could trust coming from a doctor, I have not done much research on my own, so I don't know. I do know that all kinds of doctors will push certain medications for other reasons, like they have interest in a certain pharmacuetical company etc..

As I mentioned in my first post, Specks UTI was VERY serious, but the vet said no need for a prescription/or more costly food. I wonder why not? You would think a better food would be more important than the methio, or maybe he doesn't need the better food because the methio is already doing the job...As for the steroid, we have about 12 doses left, before he goes back in for a check-up and for a refill on the methio, which he will be on for life. I will be sure to make sure my mom questions the vet more closely about the steroid. To be honest, steroids of any type make me a little nervous, and it really bothers me that in the same profession there would be such differences of opinion. Alot of people are reluctant to question anything a doctor says, because they are supposed to be the expert, but maybe more of us should educate ourselves and do so.

Also, to the poster, please do not take medical advice from what you read on here, look at it as suggestions, do your own research, and talk to your vet. I suppose getting a second opinion is important if you can afford it, but I know I couldn't with the cost of vet treatment today!!

I am a vet. It may be that your cat does not have stone problems, just FLUTD, so perhaps your vet didn't think a stone-dissolving or stone-preventing food was necessary. He may have not had much luck with Rx diets in the past in treating FLUTD. Since Karen's vet recommended a diet that is designed to prevent stone formation, I would not consider feeding a diet that can't do that. No non-prescription food has been clinically tested to prevent stone or crystal formation. A high quality diet *MAY* work, but without some kind of proof I'd be highly reluctant to try it, especially when the consequences are so bad for the cat.

I have yet to meet a private practitioner with any interest in pet food or pharmaceutical companies. Most of the time it is simply a matter of they tried something at it seems to work for them, so they keep doing it. Since I am a new vet, I haven't had the opportunity to try much, so I rely on studies whenever they exist, hence my aversion to steroids. They are incredibly useful when needed, but you also have to consider the risks. The study was referring to long-term steroid use, not for managing an acute infection. I have no problems using steroids short term to control inflammation, and it sounds like your cat needed them. I just wouldn't use them long-term, which some have done to try to control FLUTD.

With a disease such as FLUTD, there are no right answers. We haven't figured out exactly what causes it, and we don't know exactly how to cure it once and for all. So there are a LOT of different ways to try to manage it. You can always tell we have no idea what we are doing with a particular disease when there are hundreds of different ways to treat it. It's not like trying to manage hyperthyroidism- the cat has too much thyroid hormone, you do something to lower the hormone levels; pretty simple. FLUTD is a very complex disease that may have a genetic component, food component, possible viral component, stress component, and who knows what else. Sometimes it's a matter of trying several different treatment approaches before finding one that works for your particular cat.

I think it is a great idea for people to question their vets. There is SO much information out there, and no way can any one person even read it all, never mind remember it all. I mean, I get 6 journals here at home to read, and I rarely get through all of them before the next batch comes in. And that certainly doesn't even come close to all the information that is out there. To me, it is a great help when owners have done some research- sometimes they find stuff that I don't know about or hadn't considered.

I wouldn't take medical advice here either LOL! There is no way that anyone who hasn't seen the animal can possibly recommend a proper treatment, whether they are a vet or not. It's just impossible.