MYTHIE - outside the box

[Yzma]

It was the old vet who said it was okay. We only started with the new vet on Saturday. They are on Hills prescription KD.

[Traci]

Only Zooey should be on the diet, and that's questionable because the lab results have been iffy. If no cats, and none of your other cats have any indication of renal disease, then none of them should be on it.

What were you feeding them all before? I've asked this three times, it is helpful to know.

[Yzma]

Before this they were on a few things ... i used to swap between two or three brands so that they would not get too fixed on one type. There was Felidae, Innova science diet and royal canine.

[Yzma]

I think tonight i am going to have a careful feel over mythies tummy area where the scarring was to see if i can feel anything unusual.... The scars on the outside are so neat and tidy that you would never guess anything ever happened.... I never even considered that this might not be the case on the inside.

[Traci]

Actually, switching so often can cause serious problems, such as finickyness, GI tract upsets, sudden allergies and food aversions, and not to mention, difference in stool production/consistency/frequency.

It's better to have the cats on ONE type of food. That type of food could be fed in different flavor varieites, but the food itself should be only one brand. (for example, feed dry Hill's adult formula, chicken flavor one month, next bag make it Hill's adult formula fish or turkey flavor, and so on, as long as it's the same type and brand)

[Traci]

I doubt you'll feel anything externally. Inflammation and scar tissue form internally, near the sites of trauma (i.e., the pelvic region). The puncture wounds and extensive surgeries and manipulations she endured, would all be internal.

[Yzma]

i didn't realise that.... so should i swap back to normal food?

[Traci]

That depends....when exactly did the hard stools develop, when exactly did she start inappropriate elimination? You'd have to go back and remember which diet she did best on, that is, no hard stools, no blood in stools, no straining in the litterbox. Personally, I'd suggest Hill's or Royal Canin over Felidae and Innova any day.

[Yzma]

We had the least trouble on Felidae... Actually just as i am writing this i realise that the pet store stopped bringing in Felidae and so i swapped to innova then i moved and have only been giving them science diet and ryal canine since the move .... i wonder if mythie just happens to do better on felidae.... So, if i do swap mythie back to felidae to see if that solves the problem... is it okay to just change the food from the KD to felidae or should i do a gradual change??

[Traci]

If she's only been eating the K/D for less than a week, you can directly switch her back to a food she did better on, regarding her stools (but vet also should rule out inflammatory problems, due to her history).

If she's been eating K/D for longer than 2 weeks, then a week of gradual changing should be done.

Day 1: 75% k/d, 25% normal food
Day 3: 50% k/d, 50% normal food
Day 5: 25% k/d, 75% normal food
Day 7: 100% normal food

Do be sure to tell your vet you're doing this, and do be sure to ask him why he thinks it's perfectly ok to allow all the cats without renal disease to be on a prescribed renal diet. I'd love to hear his reasoning on that. (actually it doesn't matter because he should know better!)