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Old April 29th, 2011, 10:06 AM
Longblades Longblades is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 2,528
Joint or Mobility Diet for Aged Cats?

Our 18 year old is quite arthritic and the 15 year old is starting to limp too. The 15 year old has the added complication of Cholangial Hepatitis and is a crystal former.

Our Vet has recommended Royal Canin for the joint problems. I'm not going to simply discount it out of hand or use it either without some research of my own. One concern of mine is, I am leery that introducing such foods at this stage of arthritis will have much effect. My understanding of the glucosamine/chondroitin/MSM and other supplements is that they do the most good as a preventative, not as a cure. And with my dog the amount of any of these things in dog food is so small as to be insignificant in effect so I don't see why cat food would be different. Guessing on the relevance of my dog food experience with cat food though, and not made up my mind.

I just did a google of the major Vet brands and one has, get this, no meat product at all that I can see anywhere near the top. It's a U.K. brand though and I don't know if I can even get it here, not that I would, made up my mind on that one. The other's aren't impressive though. And NO commercial varieties came up in 4 pages of searching. None? There are none? Hard to believe.

If it is possible to get the urinary care in with the joint care that would be great and to be honest, Royal Canin is the only one I've found so far that makes this claim. I haven't yet got to compare it to the urinary food we now use.

Our 18 yr old is not a fussy eater but our 15 yr old HATES wet food. She gets ursodiol and prednisone in her wet food and must, must, must keep on getting them. Honestly, it's amazing she's been with us for as long as she has.

I'm not expecting anyone to do my due diligence for me but in the not unlikely event someone else has older cats with these relatively common (except for the cholangial hepatitis I guess) problems, what works for you?
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