My dog has bladder stones. Can I buy cheaper food at the store?

I wouldn't recommend trying a home cooked diet without consulting your veterinarian first - many recipes online are not nutritionally balanced. Whether or not your dog can switch to a new diet depends on the type of stone - some are more likely than others to come back. Ask your veterinarian about other options, and be up front about the cost being an issue.

Poor Jimmy! The main concern in a male dog with bladder stones is that they could become lodged in the urethra, causing a urinary obstruction which is a life-threatening emergency condition. In many cases, this will not occur, but it is a big risk to take. If Jimmy has struvite (magnesium ammonium phosphate) crystals in his urine, odds are good that his bladder stones are also struvites. This type of stone can sometimes be dissolved with a prescription based diet. It can take many months for these stones to dissolve, but the diet change does not dissolve the stones for all dogs. If Jimmy has other forms of crystals in his urine, surgery is the only option. Surgery is nearly always the best (and only) option for managing bladder stones. I understand your financial concerns, but fortunately there are some resources available to help. Care Credit (carecredit.com) can provide financing options. There are also many non-profit organizations that provide financial assistance for veterinary care (redrover.org, humanesociety.org/animals/resources/tips/trouble_affording_pet.html?credit=web_id91754962, bestfriends.org/resources/financial-aid-pets, lessonsfromaparalyzeddog.com/when-pet-owners-cant-afford-veterinary-bills/, https://getyourpet.com). I hope this helps!

The recommendation is to feed your pet a low protein, low sodium diet to help alkalinize the urine and reduce cystine urine excretion. You can achieve this with the Rx brands Hill's U/D or Royal Canin UC Low Purine. Although it is suggested that feeding a canned diet or increasing water intake will help to dilute the urine as well, and therefore reduce cystine urine excretion. Dissolving stones is possible with the diet, but this can take an extended period of time and there is always the risk of stone blockage along the urinary tract. If blockage occurs then your only option for resolution is to have the stones surgically removed. From a medical standpoint, the drug 2-MPG is used to dissolve stones that are currently in the bladder. You will have more success riding stones if you implement both MPG treatment and a urinary diet simultaneously.

You can find a couple of over the counter foods in the following link that are adequate for urinary tract diseases but non of the non prescription diets are as good as the prescription diets and this is something you must understand: https://herepup.com/best-dog-food-for-urinary-health/

I personally would not recommend a home cooked diet for a dog with bladder stones. A therapeutic diet is probably best to prevent more stones from forming and the foods restrict minerals used to form stones, encourage water consumption so that water is dilute, and keeping the urine at an ideal pH. If it is very important to you to cook meals for Hades I’d recommend using a diet formulated by a nutritionist- the website BalanceIT is a good resource. www.balanceIT.com

The appropriate diet here would be the urinary diet either Urinary S/O or Hill's C/D, and then placing your pet on a liver protectant medication to address the liver issues. The liver protectant medication is called Denamarin, and has to be prescribed by your vet. I would then consider getting your pet an abdominal ultrasound to better define what is specifically going on with the liver, so that we know what mode of therapy would be best to manage things going forward, because these values (ALKP, CHOL) can be changed by not just the liver, but also the gallbladder and adrenal glands. I hope that your pet Ceca is able to manage both of her conditions well moving forward. Best wishes and take care. : )

The answer partially depends on the type of bladder stones that Boo had. I am attaching handouts on the 2 most common types below. http://www.veterinarypartner.com/Content.plx?P=A&S=0&C=0&A=460 http://www.veterinarypartner.com/Content.plx?P=A&S=0&C=0&A=662 If Boo had struvite stones, those can often be managed without a prescription diet. If Boo had calcium oxalate stones, then diet will be a very important part of preventing him from forming stones again in the future. Unfortunately, the prescription diets tend to have both by-products and corn. The best option I have found for dogs with calcium oxalate stones are to make a homemade diet for their dogs. A diet can be created by a board certified nutritionist or with the help of Balance It. https://secure.balanceit.com/ Good luck! I hope that was helpful and answered your questions. Thanks for using PetCoach.