Cat had UT Vet says he has to use Royal Canine special UT food forever

Perhaps look into slowly transitioning both to a raw food diet while feeding the UT specialty food.

Or just feed wet food only.

It's true that there are certain vet-only Royal Canin products. However, many brands - including from manufacturers many of us would consider to be superior to Royal Canin - have UT-specific products. Wet food vs. dry is also recommended.

My personal feeling is that I won't use a vet who is overly pushy about the brand of products you can only get from them, and who won't engage in conversations about alternatives. It's a major conflict of interest in my opinion if the person who you trust to provide expert knowledge is also giving you the hard sell about products you can only buy from them. It means you are less likely to get unbiased info about the health of your cat when they are acting like a salesperson.

For what it's worth, I've had cats with UTIs in the past, who have never had recurrences after being switched to high-quality wet food most of the time and (non-Royal Canin) UT-specific dry food when necessary.

None of my cats ever had UTIs so I can't speak about the food.

One thing I do know is that cats don't drink enough usually. Feeding them wet helps with making sure they get more water, also a fountain helps since some cats only like drinking from moving water. You can also add water to their dry food.

I have two cats and one cat I have seen her drink maybe 10x in her life and I've had her for close to 15 years. I do have bowls of water and a water fountain, and I add water to her wet food.

Thanks guys. I do use a fountain. I had them on raw, but came off as it was hard to transition the older one. Will try again. I rather they do eat raw.

How old is the cat and is this it's first UTI? My female ragdoll got one about a month ago, she's 13 and this is her first one. No plans on changing her diet or eating happens. Sometimes shit happens.

Chronic UTIs might require a diet change up, but a one off? Absolutely not.

listen to your vet and give your cat good wet food too.

We adopted two kittens last year who had ongoing gastrointestinal issues. As part of the adoption, we had to agree to keep them on a vet-approved diet of special RC' food that was (surprise surprise) only available through a vet's office. Two months passed with the status quo, and no improvement. So we just accelerated our eventual plan to switch them to a raw food diet, and the gastro issues were resolved literally overnight.

Fortunately our own vet is pretty chill about such things, and (without directly admitting it) didn't seem terribly surprised with the chain of events. While I'm not an expert myself, I would recommend visiting a local raw pet food store and talking to the owner (or more knowledgeable staff) about some alternate diet-based solutions. Raw food may also be actually cheaper than the vet-store special food.

my cat is on prescription diet and we tried various foods (wet, raw, store available urinary food from Science Diet, Royal Canin etc) but only the vet science diet urinary stress food works since otherwise, he'll get bladder inflammation like at least once a year and have to goto the vet and he's in so much discomfort. he has multiple fountains, drinks water and have done multiple tests, xrays and etc... he's just susceptible to it and the prescription diet eliminated his issue and he hasn't been back to the vet for bladder inflammation since he went on prescription diet

while the ingredients may seem not great and it's expensive, but there is a reason why there's vet/prescription food and it's not just a scam

StatsGuy wrote: ↑ my cat is on prescription diet and we tried various foods (wet, raw, store available urinary food from Science Diet, Royal Canin etc) but only the vet science diet urinary stress food works since otherwise, he'll get bladder inflammation like at least once a year and have to goto the vet and he's in so much discomfort. he has multiple fountains, drinks water and have done multiple tests, xrays and etc... he's just susceptible to it and the prescription diet eliminated his issue and he hasn't been back to the vet for bladder inflammation since he went on prescription diet

while the ingredients may seem not great and it's expensive, but there is a reason why there's vet/prescription food and it's not just a scam

Agreed.

Check out D-Mannose, human form is ok, just adjust dose

smp2010 wrote: ↑ Check out D-Mannose, human form is ok, just adjust dose

It might work or it might not. It didn't work for me (personally). Best to check with your vet, especially re dosage.

We have this issue with our cat - recurring EVERY year. We have our cat on the "prescription" food the vet recommends and sells (and the prices have been skyrocketing each year). Our cat is a light eater so... whatever... just rolling with it and absorbing the cost. HOWEVER - it isn't working!! Our cat still gets an infection every spring or so... we just brought her in and asked the vet to just give her the antibiotic (skip the tests, etc.). Luckily he did so we took a $50 hit instead of many hundreds this year. (It worked and the cat is fine now)

We have a fountain too...

Switching to wet food may be the best option (we are still on dry)... maybe that would work?

Give the cat both to start off. A bit of wet in the morning, a bit of wet in the evening and leave the hard food down.

One of our cats won't touch hard food or drink water. The other one will eat and expects hard food, canned food and water. I dread the day that they decide they don't like their current wet food - and for sure they will.

wet food is often recommended because it provides more hydration which can aide with GI issues, especially for cats who don't drink much water. i dunno, there's tons of reviews out there about cat foods/brands and to me, go with what you can afford. my vet pushes hills but after doing some research, i've decided to go with tiki and my boy's been fine/healthy on the stuff without issues ever since.

there's a youtube channel called all about cats (malory i think?) who reviews a lot of the brands sold in pet valu/petsmart/rens, etc. which i found quite helpful---its based on the nutritional content, where its sourced, product recall history etc. i think what you'll find is some products that are pushed by vets that hit higher pricepoints (such as royal and even hills) aren't actually reviewed that highly... granted, theres brands like ziwi and orijen that are extremely $$$ and have really good ratings, but you'll find many brands out there that you could possibly try that are received well and are cheaper than royal canine