Abnormal Labwork AGAIN! :(

[Ladymom]

I swear by Cranberry Relief and it is much cheaper. Anything you get from your vet will have a huge mark up.

Amazon.com: NaturVet Cranberry Relief, 50 Gram:...
It will make her urine less acidic. Crystals and stones form when urine is not "neutral".

[bellasmomok]

Ok, I talked to Dr. W. today (because Bella seems to not like brown rice.....good grief!) and went ahead and asked him about the urine pH. He asked me if she'd eaten green beans yesterday (which she did). Then he said that green beans (and veggies in general) can acidify the urine. Struvite crystals/stones are the ones made with acidic pH's and urate stones/crystals with basic, and since struvite ones aren't nearly as common as urate ones, and since her urinalysis has been negative for both, he thinks I should just not worry about it. (He did say that I could discontinue veggies for a day or 2 and then test her urine myself with the strips they sell to see if the pH normalizes if I want to. But he thinks the higher pH is probably safer than allowing it to be lower and that she gets a lot of good out of the veggies, so he thinks it should be fine continuing to give them.)

[Yorkieluv]

Originally Posted by bellasmomok

Struvite crystals/stones are the ones made with acidic pH's and urate stones/crystals with basic, and since struvite ones aren't nearly as common as urate ones, and since her urinalysis has been negative for both, he thinks I should just not worry about it.

Hi Tara Struvite stones/crystals actually form in alkaline urine and are consistent with UTIs. Urate stones form in acidic urine.

Bladder Stones
Struvite uroliths come in many different shapes and sizes, are radiodense, and form in an alkaline urine.

Bladder Stones
Urate and ammonium Urate
...There does not seem to be a connection with a urinary tract infection, and they tend to form in an acidic urine....Urate stones are radiolucent. If they get large or covered with other minerals they might become radiopaque. Urate calculi tend to be small and occur as several stones. These stones usually form in the bladder, and when passed through the urethra, can become lodged....Ammonium urate uroliths are sometimes formed in pets with PSS (liver disease) due to improper metabolism of ammonia to urea. This will cause excess uric acid levels in the bloodstream. The kidneys filter out this excess uric acid in the production of urine, thus increasing the level of uric acid in the bladder. The excess ammonia that is in the bloodstream from the liver problem also builds up in the urine in the bladder. These two compounds combine to form the ammonium urate bladder stone....

I find it strange that he said veggies are acidifying...They actually help alkalize the urine.
Here are a couple of links with charts of alkalizing/acidifying foods. Most veggies are alkalizing...There are very few that actually are labeled as acidifying.
Meats are the main foods that are acidifying.

Chart of acidifying and alkalizing foods

ACIDIFYING FOODS

[bellasmomok]

Originally Posted by Yorkieluv

Hi Tara Struvite stones/crystals actually form in alkaline urine and are consistent with UTIs. Urate stones form in acidic urine.

Bladder Stones
Struvite uroliths come in many different shapes and sizes, are radiodense, and form in an alkaline urine.

Bladder Stones
Urate and ammonium Urate
...There does not seem to be a connection with a urinary tract infection, and they tend to form in an acidic urine....Urate stones are radiolucent. If they get large or covered with other minerals they might become radiopaque. Urate calculi tend to be small and occur as several stones. These stones usually form in the bladder, and when passed through the urethra, can become lodged....Ammonium urate uroliths are sometimes formed in pets with PSS (liver disease) due to improper metabolism of ammonia to urea. This will cause excess uric acid levels in the bloodstream. The kidneys filter out this excess uric acid in the production of urine, thus increasing the level of uric acid in the bladder. The excess ammonia that is in the bloodstream from the liver problem also builds up in the urine in the bladder. These two compounds combine to form the ammonium urate bladder stone....

I find it strange that he said veggies are acidifying...They actually help alkalize the urine.
Here are a couple of links with charts of alkalizing/acidifying foods. Most veggies are alkalizing...There are very few that actually are labeled as acidifying.
Meats are the main foods that are acidifying.

Chart of acidifying and alkalizing foods

ACIDIFYING FOODS

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!

[Yorkieluv]

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.

[bellasmomok]

Well, Bella seems to be doing great! (Except for her runny nose, sneezing, snuffling, and snorting as of late....she doesn't have a fever and seems to feel great, so I guess it must all be related to allergies/dry air/something???) She has gained back the weight she lost + a little....she weighs 4.2 lbs now!! She seems to still love her home-cooked food, and she still has no symptoms, so yay!

Because her pH was 6.0 when she had the UTI after her spay, and then was 8.5 when we repeated the urinalysis after finishing the antibiotics, I ordered some pH test strips. We were pretty sure the 8.5 was from the veggies (esp. green beans) that I had been adding to her diet each day, and since adding the veggies seemed to affect her pH AND her stools became very loose, I stopped adding in veggies every day. Yesterday I used the pH strips for the first time, but I just touched them to a fresh wet spot on her pad instead of catching it and dipping the strip (which I will try to do this weekend)....it was 6.5. I emailed Dr. W with an update on how good she's doing and mentioned this to him, but he said that actually 6.5 is ideal for the prevention of urate stones which are what she is susceptible to precipitate. I'm a little confused by that but I didn't want to bother him about it until I asked you all....I was under the impression that urate stones and crystals (and calcium oxalate stones and crystals?) had the possibility of forming in an acidic pH (which is anything below 7 right?....but maybe it's lower than 6.5??) I would be grateful for any input on that!

Also, I know Crystal asked me before if the recipe he provided me with met AAFCO guidelines awhile back, but truthfully I forgot all about that until today when I was reading a thread on dog food (I know some of you read it too ) So, when I emailed him today with her update, I asked him if it was within those guidelines, and he responded that it was not....that is it much closer to the National Research Councils (NRC) recommendations except that B vitamins are higher and the copper is marginal. He also said that he thinks the NRC recommendations are much more realistic. Soooo, Crystal, I need some input on that too....what do you think about conforming to NRC but not to AAFCO guidelines? I'm really hoping that is still okay for her since we're already this far into this, but if not.....I don't know. I would appreciate your insight very much!

[Ellie May]

Originally Posted by bellasmomok

Well, Bella seems to be doing great! (Except for her runny nose, sneezing, snuffling, and snorting as of late....she doesn't have a fever and seems to feel great, so I guess it must all be related to allergies/dry air/something???) She has gained back the weight she lost + a little....she weighs 4.2 lbs now!! She seems to still love her home-cooked food, and she still has no symptoms, so yay!

Because her pH was 6.0 when she had the UTI after her spay, and then was 8.5 when we repeated the urinalysis after finishing the antibiotics, I ordered some pH test strips. We were pretty sure the 8.5 was from the veggies (esp. green beans) that I had been adding to her diet each day, and since adding the veggies seemed to affect her pH AND her stools became very loose, I stopped adding in veggies every day. Yesterday I used the pH strips for the first time, but I just touched them to a fresh wet spot on her pad instead of catching it and dipping the strip (which I will try to do this weekend)....it was 6.5. I emailed Dr. W with an update on how good she's doing and mentioned this to him, but he said that actually 6.5 is ideal for the prevention of urate stones which are what she is susceptible to precipitate. I'm a little confused by that but I didn't want to bother him about it until I asked you all....I was under the impression that urate stones and crystals (and calcium oxalate stones and crystals?) had the possibility of forming in an acidic pH (which is anything below 7 right?....but maybe it's lower than 6.5??) I would be grateful for any input on that!

Also, I know Crystal asked me before if the recipe he provided me with met AAFCO guidelines awhile back, but truthfully I forgot all about that until today when I was reading a thread on dog food (I know some of you read it too ) So, when I emailed him today with her update, I asked him if it was within those guidelines, and he responded that it was not....that is it much closer to the National Research Councils (NRC) recommendations except that B vitamins are higher and the copper is marginal. He also said that he thinks the NRC recommendations are much more realistic. Soooo, Crystal, I need some input on that too....what do you think about conforming to NRC but not to AAFCO guidelines? I'm really hoping that is still okay for her since we're already this far into this, but if not.....I don't know. I would appreciate your insight very much!

I haven't got a clue what I think about it.
I "think" Ellie's recipe meets AAFCO guidelines but not 100% on that. It's just that no feeding trial was done with her recipe.
With diets for heatlh issues, they may not meet the guidelines and that's fine.
NRC vs. AAFCO is a tough one because they both have flaws and I don't really respect either. Ellie's nutritionist is pretty adament about pet foods meeting AAFCO guidelines, so that is what I go with right now. If you Google it, you will find reasons to not go with either of them and ignore it all. It's one of those things that you have to just trust your nutritionist with but if my dog was on a diet that any adult dog could eat, I would expect that it meet either the NRC or AAFCO and not just be "close to NRC". Then you have a third system. The system of whatever your nutritionist feels like doing... Does that make sense? Now if the only reason it doesn't match NRC is to make sure it is meeting her liver's needs, then that is different. My preference at this time because it seems to be more preferred is AAFCO but just because a food is AAFCO approved doesn't mean it's good. I'm done rambling now.

[bellasmomok]

Bella is now a whole year old (my baby is growing up! ), so we had her BAT repeated.....the results were: Pre = 7.2 (which is normal); and Post = 97.7 . (Her previous Pre was 243, and post was 72.6.....so her post has gone up a bit.....I guess that UTI really did make a difference??? Strange....)
Since her post was pretty high, I went ahead and had them do the Protein C test. Got the results back on that today.....89 (with a normal of 75-135)! Her vet feels that all this supports the likelihood of MVD rather than a shunt, so I am feeling much more at ease and relieved about that!

Sooo, while I plan to occasionally home cook still using Dr. W's diet (and maybe he'll change it a bit now that we know more??), I don't plan to do this solely anymore. She gets bored very quickly with food, and really likes things to be rotated, so we're going back to kibble (NB Organic Chicken and Wellness Whitefish and Sweet Potato) and rotating those along with home-cooked. I think that will make her much, much happier! (And my wallet and free time a little happier too, though I certainly don't mind doing what I need to.) And, I'll still do the milk thistle, Vit. E, and fish oil daily too. I think as long as she continues to be asymptomatic with this routine, then we're good! IF she ever has ANY symptom, we'll go right back to what we've been doing, but I really think she'll do great!!

(Oh! And she hasn't had another UTI since the first one she got after her spay. This time I had her U/A repeated BEFORE we did the BAT again just to make sure. Her vet feels like that UTI was just a result of her bladder maybe getting a little bruised during the spay.....good to know that it wasn't a symptom.)