Methionine for Dogs & Cats: Prevent Struvite & Acidify Urine

Learn about bladder stones in dogs and cats and help improve your pet's urinary system. Causes, symptoms, treatments & more.

A cat’s overall well-being can quickly become compromised when their urinary system is not at optimum health. Because your cat’s diet impacts what they eliminate, nutrition can play a critical role.

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Vet authorized diets are typically needed only when a pet has specific health issues, but learning about how they're different from "normal" foods can help you be a more well-rounded pet parent.

Bladder stones are collections of mineral crystals that combine together in the urinary tract. Excess minerals can encourage the formation of crystals in the urine, leading to the creation of bladder stones. Urinary diets have the correct balance of minerals to maintain bladder health. In addition, they have low protein and calcium, which results in decreased urinary concentrations of stone-forming constituents. To get the biggest benefit, I recommend choosing a urinary specific food for Liir, as regular diets will not be formulated to help with bladder health. I recommend Hill's Science Diet u/d. I hope this helps!

Hello. Methiovet will help longer term but not with her immediate issue. If there is a 24 hour vet I would recommend bringing her there in case she is blocked, which can easily be fatal overnight or cause a bladder rupture. If she has a sore abdomen (belly) and if no or very little pee is coming out you need to get her seen right away. If she is happy otherwise and is passing large volumes of pee then you can bring her first thing in the morning. Good luck with her.

There is no "active ingredient" per se in the Royal Canin Multifunction and Urinary Hydrolyzed Protein diet. Rather, the diet is developed in such a manner as to create an environment in which urinary stones are less likely to form. Specifically, struvite crystals will form in alkaline urine. The diet is designed to lower the pH of the urine so as to prevent the development of these crystals. They do this primarily by eliminating purines (one of the amino acid building blocks of protein) through hydrolyzing the proteins (breaking them down into amino acids). An additional benefit of hydrolyzing the proteins is that they are much easier to digest and are hypoallergenic.

I'm so sorry to hear that you had to put your dog down. I know that is never an easy decision. I doubt the methionine has anything to do with his passing but of course, there is no way for me to know this for sure. Anything is possible. I do not have enough information though to be helpful. You did not say why you had to put your dog down, what symptoms he was having, etc. Personally, I think if the methionine was to cause an issue it would have happened sooner than 7 months after him taking it unless he had a pre-existing liver, kidney or pancreatic disease. ( https://www.petplace.com/article/drug-library/drug-library/library/methionine-for-dogs-and-cats/ )

They do make a pill known as DLM that helps lower the pH but if you lower it too much you can form calcium crystals in the urine that can lead to bladder stones as well. Either method takes frequent urine checks to monitor progress

What a cute kitty! Your vet can prescribe a special prescription diet to help manage the crystals in his urine. The one we commonly prescribe is Royal Canin SO diet, but there are several others available as well. These diets help keep the urine pH at an appropriate level and can decrease or eliminate the crystals in the urine.

The best and most effective treatment to adjust a cat’s urine pH is to start a special prescription diet. Royal Canin, science diet and Purina all make prescription diets with additives to make the urine more acidic. This will also help to prevent urinary tract infections. These diets can be purchased in many pet stores and online as well but they do require the OK from your veterinarian. The diets will begin to take affect within two weeks and it is recommended to retest the urine one month after starting the new diet. I hope this helps.