Another Update

I haven't been keeping good tabs on this blog, my apologies.

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed Ritzy acting funny. He kept licking his mouth CONSTANTLY, he wouldn't stop and it had me worried, so we moved up Ritzy's yearly physical with bloodwork to November rather than end of December. I am glad I did.

Ritzy was extremely dehydrated. The vet administered fluids to help jump start getting him rehydrated. She knew he was dehydrated because he had tacky gums.

His bloodwork came back the next day and everything looked good except for his BUN number, the number has a range of 15-25 and his was a 26 but she thinks it is because he was dehydrated. Everyone on the K9 Kidney Diets board said that they think that is why it was raised too and not to worry. The vet said she would consider Ritzy (with that number) "early renal" and she said it could be reversed, he just had to drink.

We have tried EVERYTHING to get Ritzy to drink and it has been quite the trial and then a "eurkea" moment came to me - Ritzy LOVED milk, but, obviously too much milk is not good for several reasons and one being that he is a calcium oxalate forming dog. So, I add just a bit to his water and sure enough, he drinks like a champ! Just a little trick that worked for us! PRAISE GOD! (I do have a brand new turkey baster in reserve though to force it down his throat if he stops drinking! I will not let him do that to himself!)

Fuzzer is going well. The only supplements we're using right now are calcium citrate to bind the phosphorous in his diet and Lysimachia-3, a chinese herb used to soften stones and fight stones and crystals. We need to start adding the other supplements soon which are a Multi-B, Vitamin E and Omega 3. I have been wanting to add everything slowly to give his body time to process it all and see how he reacts to everything.

Ritzy was hesitant to eat with the calcium citrate in his food at first, but he has gotten used to it. I have to "pill" the Lysimachia-3 down his throat because he downright refuses to eat it in his food. This is what I am making for Ritzy these days:

5oz. boneless skinless chicken breast (stewed)

4oz. canned carrots, drained and boiled

3oz. cooked Macaroni

3 oz. frozen broccoli, boiled and drained.

We're going to start venturing around and switching things up now so Ritzy doesn't get bored of his food, but it is going well. It is a little extra effort but definitely worth it!

Good News

Two weeks ago we brought Ritzy for a follow up urinalysis after starting potassium citrate. We received great news! Ritzy’s pH was a 7 and the vet only saw a few broken crystals, so his urine looked fantastic!

Our course of action was to stay on Hill’s u/d and the potassium citrate, but Ritzy has been really sick of his food and the lovely members of K9KidneyDiets pretty much told me the same thing happened to them, they received good news with using Hill’s and potassium citrate and then a year later stones were back and they really suggested I start Fuzzer. I talked to my husband about it and we decided to implement Fuzzer now. It makes me a bit nervous, screwing with what was a good thing (Hill's and potassium citrate working for Ritzy). But I know Fuzzer is what is best for him and his kidneys.

Ritzy has been on Fuzzer for a week and I already have to modify it. He was eating a home made diet of chicken, broccoli and rice. He seemed to like it the first day and then the second day I noticed him eating around the rice and the third day I noticed a pile of broccoli next to his bowl. He just picks out the chicken. So I blended them all together and he refuses it all together until he is starving and then reluctantly eats it. So, I am back to the drawing board and am working on a new recipe for Ritzy. There is definitely a learning curve for this diet, but I am starting to get it.

I will explain more about Ritzy’s diet as I get the new one made.

A Ritzy Update

Ritzy has been on potassium citrate for almost two weeks now. He is such a good boy, he takes it like a treat because he is sick of me "pilling" it down his throat. My poor boy! He is done with his medication for the bladder infection. I am dropping off a urine sample this week to find out the status of everything. I have a feeling the crystals won't be gone. I don't hold a lot of faith in Hill's u/d even with the addition of the potassium citrate.

I have worked with the absolutely lovely people on the K9KidneyDiets group and with them, I have created a diet for Ritzy that consists of (right now) chicken, broccoli and organic white rice. I also have 2 of the 5 supplements for his diet as well. Lysimacia-3 and Calcium Citrate. I plan on implementing this diet on Tuesday. I want to bring in Ritzy's urine sample before the "Fuzzer" diet to see how things are going so we can compare it to how the Fuzzer diet affects his urine.

I will be posting updates soon. I hold out a lot of hope for Fuzzer.

A Ritzy Update

I have noticed the past couple of days that Ritzy has been licking himself more than normal and "tugging" slightly after he licks and this raised a red flag in my head. I brought him into the vet and had a urinalysis performed to find that his urine pH was 6.5, he had an infection and a lot of crystals. I asked the vet if she thought he had stones and she is assuming not, but unsure. This is, obviously, a huge bummer.

My vet wanted to perform a liver test to rule out the possibility of a liver shunt. I did some research on liver shunts and, in my opinion, I don't think the liver shunt issue sounds like Ritzy at all. We also found out the test would be $70 and if it was, in fact, the issue, the surgery would cost at a minimum - a couple grand which we are unable to do. We will use it as a last resort.

The next step is to add potassium citrate to Ritzy's diet to help raise his pH. I have heard mix reviews about this. For some people the potassium citrate worked on their dogs, for others it did not. This is another course of action we're contemplating. Another step would be to add some enzymes that deal with the calcium and also make Ritzy urinate more so the crystals do not attach and form stones, this too is something we're considering.

Our best bet, I think, would be to implement the Fuzzer Diet which is a part of the K9KidneyDiets group. The founder of this diet and web group had 3 or 4 dogs with inoperable calcium oxalate stones and was told there was nothing she could do and she'd have to watch them die. She said "like hell" and went to work creating a diet to help her furry friends. The Fuzzer Diet shrunk the stones in all of her dogs and healed them and they all lived to be 18 or 19 years old. This sounds like, for us, our miracle. It just takes a lot of work and research to implement and I took a break from my research. So I am back at it so we can implement this diet. We are praying SO HARD that we'll find a way to manage this awful condition.

Update on Ritzy

Things seem to be going well with Ritzy. I do keep an eye on his urination frequency and to see if he is showing signs of any problems. I am a little concerned about the frequency (because it can be a sign of calcium oxalate crystals/stones) but we've also been pushing a lot of fluids, so that could also be the explanation. I will be going in to see the vet in October for another urinalysis for my own piece of mind.

Ritzy is stricly on wet/dry Hill's u/d. His around 16 lbs. and he has 1/2 cup wet and 1/2 cup dry food a day. Unfortunately, our son (20 months old) has a habit of throwing food over the side of his highchair for Ritzy, a habit we are trying very hard to break him of, so Ritzy has gotten the tiniest bits of human scraps from time to time, which definitely worries me, hence another reason for the urinalysis in October.

Ritzy only gets steam distilled water which was suggested to me by a group I joined on Yahoo called the K9 Kidney Diet, it is a homemade diet that I am contemplating starting Ritzy on but won't impliment until I get the "go ahead" from our vet and she wants to wait and see what Hill's u/d continues to do for him. Steam distilled water doesn't contain the minerals found in regular tap water or bottled water, minerals that can also contribute the calcium oxalate crystal/stone formation.

We've also changed Ritzy's bowl for his water. He does not drink, we've done everything short of force feeding him water and nothing has worked. We changed his bowl to a plastic one and he drinks a TON more than he used to. He especially likes it when I freeze the water a little for him, he likes it ICE COLD. If you have problems getting your dog to drink, definitely change up the types of bowls and ways you serve the water, some dogs are just fussier than most when it comes to that. It has made a world of difference for us.

Another way to get Ritzy to drink more as well is that I also add some of the distilled water to his canned food. He HATES it, so I don't add a ton, but just adding that little bit makes a big difference for a dog who doesn't drink much.

For treats, this has been so hard for us because our little Ritzy loves treats and I was one who purchase him all sorts of baked goods from the doggy bakery, etc. so he is used to yummy nummies and he can't have any due to his condition now. So for treats I make ice cubes in a tray with his distilled water and I will add some of his dry and/or canned food to the cubes and he gets really excited about them. For us this is great because it is a treat for him and another source of water for me to get into him, so it makes us both happy.

Another treat idea I actually found online from a woman who had the same problem as me, a pampered pup who was used to goodies and was on the same strict diet. Here is her recipe:

3 cups dry Hill's u/d

1 /2 cups distilled water

Pinch of cinnamon

You take the 3 cups dry Hill's u/d and put it in a food processor until it is a somewhat fine texture and then add the water, this makes your "dough". Spoon the "dough" into muffin tins or an 8x8 pan and then little dust the tops with cinnamon. Then bake at 420 for 45 minutes and it makes little "muffins" or "brownies" depending on how you bake them.

We made these treats for Ritzy for his birthday and he went nuts over them so we were thrilled he felt he was having something special and we didn't have to go off his special diet.

Just some helpful hints.

Diagnosis and Surgery

Symptoms

We found out Ritzy had bladder stones because he had peed indoors (not being able to hold it is a sign of bladder stones) and there was blood in his urine (another sign of bladder stones). We were immediately upset, but it was late at night and Ritzy was acting fine, so we took him to the vet in the morning.

Ritzy did show other symptoms that we didn't associate to a medical condition. He would urinate many times while outside but we attributed that to marking while on our walk. He also, during play, would walk off with his tail between his legs and go lay down when I would make him jump, etc. - we thought it had something to do with our toddler wabbling about and thinking he was in trouble or something, but now we know that the jumping and excited play would cause the stones to rumble around and cause him a lot of discomfort and pain.

Tesing and Diagnosis

The vet did a urinalysis and found calcium oxalate crystals present. We authorized a full blood work up and a urine culture to be sent out to a lab.

Our vet spoke to us about calcium oxalate stones and recommended we have surgery performed on Ritzy right away and we set it for the next week.

Things didn't feel right with our vet, she wouldn't really answer our questions and seemed to want to perform surgery more for her paycheck than to save Ritzy, so we looked around and found another vet and this vet was a GODSEND and a blessing. This vet was caring and thoughtful and incredibly charming AND half the price which we were so thankful for.

We picked up Ritzy's test results and file from our old vet and brought them to the new one. Ritzy's blood work showed severe dehydration. This is something that puzzled my husband and I because Ritzy always has a bowl of fresh water available and we change the water frequently to keep it cold and fresh. But we just found that Ritzy is not a dog that drinks often, we started noticing that after having it pointed out to us and it became quite clear, he drinks maybe once a day and that is not enough and could be part of the cause of the stones. His urinalysis also indicated a urine pH level of 9 (normal range is between 6.5 - 7).

Surgery

Ritzy had his surgery on Wednesday, July 15, 2009. He had 4 small stones. I have a picture of the stones and will post it in another posting. The vet sent them off to the University of Minnesota for further testing to verify that they were, indeed, calcium oxalate.

Recovery

The recovery process was VERY hard for Ritzy. The pain was unbearable and the pain medications did not even touch his pain. There were many nights and many tears while we watching Ritzy scream and cry in pain - not easy at all. Ritzy was on Clavamox for the inflammation the stones caused in his bladder and Previcox for pain medication.

Food and Follow up Testing

We had him on Purina NF after the surgery. A mixture of canned and wet. The canned contains water so it should help with fluid consumption. For dogs prone to bladder stones you want to increase water consumption and add more trips outside to go potty to keep the bladder flushed, so if crystals are present, they are unable to form stones.

Purina NF went well for a while. Ritzy seemed to like it, but after about a week we noticed he had diarrhea and he was vomiting, so we switched foods.

The vet then put Ritzy on Hill's W/D which is formulated for struvite bladder stones - wet and dry. This was about one week or so after the surgery. They performed a urinalysis to see how he was doing and his urine was free of crystals but showed mild irritation which the vet contributed to inflammation from the surgery. They wanted to be certain stones had not formed again, so they also performed some x-rays tests and did not find any stone formations present. His urine pH was 8.

When my vet received the stone analysis back from the University of Minnesota she confirmed with me that they were, indeed, calcium oxalate stones so Ritzy was changed to Hill's Prescription Diet U/D. We do a mixture of wet and dry and Ritzy is doing very well on it. We went for a follow up urinalysis 2 weeks after the last one and his pH was an 8 still and also was showing mild irritation again, so they wanted us to come back in 2 more weeks for another urinalysis.

We went in for a follow up urinalysis and Ritzy's pH registered at 6, so it is going down, but we need to actually keep it around 6.5 - 7.0 in order to make sure his urine is not too acidic, which would be the ideal environment for calcium oxalate stones - we don't want that. No crystals were present and his specific gravity was 1.036 which is fantastic. The vet was very optimistic and said she wouldn't need to see us again until December for another urinalysis, but for my own piece of mind, we will be going back in October (two months after final urinalysis) to see how things are going.

Purpose of this Blog.

In July of 2009, our precious Ritzy was diagnosed with calcium oxalate crystals and bladder stones. I like to be informed about everything that concerns my family and this matter is no different to me. I have delved into research regarding bladder stones in dogs, especially calcium oxalate bladder stones. My research has uncovered some great and informative sites, but it has also found a lot of contradicting information. Unfortunately, calcium oxalate crystals and bladder stones are still an "enigma" of the medical world (especially in veterinary medicine) and so not a whole lot of definitive information exists. The websites that I have found have helped me the most on this journey we're embarking on are the websites and blogs written by people like myself, concerned doggy parents who love their furry children and will do anything to save them. So I have decided to write this blog, I hope that the information I share will help someone else if, God forbid, they are on the same journey to saving their furry friend.