Quote:
Originally Posted by bellasmomok  Somehow I think I'M the one who got those confused.....I think.
Basic chemistry lesson in progress (chemistry was never my strong suit...oh boy!):
pH < 7 is acidic
pH > 7 is basic (alkaline)
Is that right? I got it backwards I think......I started looking at the website you gave me about alkalizing/acidifying foods and saw that cranberries are acidifying.......and my vet's colleague had said today that I should use a cranberry product to help acidify her urine. But that would be backward if her urine was already acidic! So I looked up pH and acid/base online and thanks to our good friends at Wikipedia I now have even more proof to support my suckiness at chemistry!!! Whoops!
So the veggies would have alkalized her urine (and it is 8.5 now), so that makes sense. And she would either need to skip the veggies for a bit to check that theory and then not worry about it (because that is higher risk for struvite's which aren't as common as urate's) OR I can use a cranberry product to acidify her urine and bring it back to normal pH. (She doesn't have stones or crystals by my ultrasound and by urinalysis, so that's good!)
Whew....hopefully I got it right that time???   sheesh, Tara! |
We all have days like that! LOL
But you're absolutely correct about the pH stuff.
Strutive stones are actually quite common, especially in dogs that have had UTI.
Canine Struvite Bladder Stones
The most common stone types are Oxalate and Struvite and since the approach is completely different for each type, it is crucial to determine the stone type. ...
Struvite stones in the dog are almost always formed because of the urinary changes that occur with specific types of bladder infection: almost always Staphyloccocal infection but occasionally a Proteus infection. If a urine culture from a patient with a bladder stone should grow either Staph or Proteus, this would make struvite more likely than oxalate. Also, struvite requires an alkaline pH to form while oxalate requires an acid pH to form; urine pH is a part of any urinalysis and thus provides another clue as to the stone identity.