So one of the ladies started pissing outside of the box a couple of days ago. I took her to vet yesterday, and they diagnosed her with struvite crystals and had me switch everybody from dry food to C/D canned.
The vet’s office hasn’t otherwise been very forthcoming with information, other than to come back in a month for another urinalysis. I guess that’s the tradeoff using a vet that’s open on Saturdays and takes walk-ins.
Does anybody have any experience on how long I should expect the crystals to take to dissolve? We’re going to have to keep her and her sister confined for the duration, to avoid having puddles of piss scattered throughout the house. If it’s just going to be a week or so, they can live in the basement. Anything longer than that, and we’re going to need to make other plans.
Mine did stop, by switching to an all-wet diet ( not prescription after the first month or two ). But that was with a young male cat, where the issue is blockage of their more narrow urethras. Before his issues cleared he twice ended up in an emergency vet on fluids for a day or three, until his urine cleared before going home.
Not sure about the OP’s problems though. Stick with wet food ( prescription or not ) and maybe experiment with pet fountains to encourage more drinking. It seems that hydration is the biggest ally in the whole struggle. Anyway, best of luck.
Switching my kitties from kibble to canned, for urinary crystals, started a cascade of problems which left one of the sibling pair dead (from fatty liver disease), and the other requiring massive amounts of meds and force feeding to get him stable with inflammatory bowel disease. I suspect they were both destined to develop these problems, but the abrupt switch in food was definitely a trigger.
Long story short, please pay enough attention to know if the abrupt food switch has caused any of them to go off their food. Even without an underlying issue, cats can get very sick very quick if they stop eating. We only realized when it was too late for one of ours.