Wysong Biotic ph- ?

Has anyone here ever used Wysong's Biotic ph-?

http://www.wysong.net/products/pH-dog-cat-supplement.php

While Buster was at the vet for his leg yesterday, I had them do a urinalysis since he will occasionally pee in the house. This is a rather new development over the last few months. I've attributed it to my husband being out of work & separation anxiety since Buster tends to do it when we both leave the house, but I wanted to get it checked out just to be sure. There was never any evidence of blood in his urine & we did deal with separation anxiety with him when we first adopted him. The results came back that his urine ph was high (at around 8) and he has a lot of struvite crystals, but the wbc & rbc counts were both normal. My vet doesn't think there is any sort of infection. Buster is allergic to corn so prescription food to reduce the crystals is out of the question. My vet recommended just trying to increase his water intake but I'm contemplating trying this supplement and/or a food change as well. Any reviews or recommendations?

The PH - is good. All of my girls have high ph too and occasional crystals so I soak their food in water before I feed them and I put about a teaspoon of natural apple cider vinegar in with the water that I soak their food in and they don't seem to taste it. My vet said that was a good thing to do. I also give them d-mannose powder to help prevent infections.

Have used it on Wellington and it did help. I found changing to grain free adding a good probiotic and coconut oil and flooding the food helped the best. Now I test his Ph once a week.

That was exactly Bruno's problem (although he did have a mild infection on top of the struvite crystals). We went with a conservative approach and did not use special food or supplements to acidify his urine. Instead, we tried to eliminate potential culprits of the struvite crystals and up his water intake, as follows:

1. Eliminated any supplements/vitamins containing minerals. We were giving him Sea Meal and stopped that because it had a high mineral content.

2. Eliminated sources of calcium and minerals. No more yogurt. No more marrow bones.

3. Moved to a senior food which contains less minerals. Add 1/3 cup of water to kibble and add 1 TBS of wet senior food to the dry kibble. We've since moved to a single grain, single protein food and he is doing well on that, also.

We had long discussions with our vet, who initially wanted to put Bruno on one of the Hill's diets. His biggest problem with commercial dog food was that so many of them are loaded with so ingredients and it's really hard to pinpoint potential food culprits with some of the fancier foods. So we compromised and he suggested feeding senior recipes and simple recipes. Stay away from anything that is loaded with vitamins and minerals.

It took a few months, but it has worked for us. We felt better with a conservative approach because we didn't want to risk turning Bruno's ph balance too acidic with supplements and face the possibility of calcium oxalate crystals.

never heard of it...but interesting!

Thanks for all of the advice. Buster is currently eating Merrick's senior kibble and I have started soaking it in water. He tends to have a sensitive tummy so I'm always leary when changing foods but he did ok with the Honest Kitchen's Force dehydrated raw before (aside from more/bigger poops) so I am thinking that may be a good option for him. There's plenty of liquid in it and it's grain free. Either that or maybe we'll try Orijen (since Merrick is not grain free) & the Wysong supplement. I haven't decided yet.

PugLady3 wrote:Thanks for all of the advice. Buster is currently eating Merrick's senior kibble and I have started soaking it in water. He tends to have a sensitive tummy so I'm always leary when changing foods but he did ok with the Honest Kitchen's Force dehydrated raw before (aside from more/bigger poops) so I am thinking that may be a good option for him. There's plenty of liquid in it and it's grain free. Either that or maybe we'll try Orijen (since Merrick is not grain free) & the Wysong supplement. I haven't decided yet.

Wysong is a decent company, however take a look at their recall history before you make that decision. Here's a good link to start - scroll down to see Wysong info.

Merrick has a grain free brand called Before Grains. I feed my cats this brand with a lot of luck. They don't have a Senior Formula, though. Origen, however, DOES have a Senior Formula and it is a great food. I really like many, many things about Origen and, if I fed kibble, that is probably the brand I would choose.

Penny does very well on Orijen senior. I change her food every 4-6 months, always grain-free, and her next change will be back to Orijen.

Ok, so rather than starting a whole new thread, I figured that I would just continue on this one. I started slowly switching Buster over to Orijen senior about a week ago - gradually mixing it with the Merrick senior. We're at about a 50/50 mix right now. We decided to forego the Wysong supplement until we see what kind of a change the grain free, higher protein food makes with his urine ph & the crystals. Unfortunately, he has been throwing up inconsistently all week long after meals (mostly after breakfast, but once in a while at night & not after every meal). Should I give up on the switch or give his tummy more time to get used to it? I've been switching Bud & Duke over to it too & they are doing fine. Any suggestions?

Try adding some canned pumpkin with his food which should help settle the stomach and aid in digestion. If you can't find it in the store (I haven't been able to) try to find the Vet Science Fruitables pumpkin supplement. http://www.k9cuisine.com/p-1422-fruitables-pet-food-pumpkin-and-cinnamon-dry-food-mixer-digestive-supplement-for-dogs-cats.aspx

Actually I think that urine ph of 8 is really pretty alkaline. We like to keep them at 6-7 at most. These handicapped guys are really prone to crystals and stones let alone UTIs. To increase water intake, I give 1/3 cup of water with a pinch of tuna in it 4 times daily. this not only increases their water intake, but ensures that they have dilute urine throughout the day. Have one pug that would only drink in the evening, and nothing all day. Now all 9 look for those water "treats". Of course they all have access to free choice water too.
We keep all 9 on grain free, and all get the same ingredients, but we have one that tends to have alkaline urine, and we have added apple cider vinegar and cranberry extract, and she is now right where we want her at 6.5
We check them all every wk with chemstrips to check for ph, infection etc.

I do have some test strips but haven't used them yet. Hopefully this weekend - I've read that it's best to use the first urine catch of the day, before they've had a chance to eat, & it's hard for me to do that at 5:30 in the morning during the week. Buster drinks plenty of water and I've been soaking his food at every meal, so hopefully the ph will have improved. As far as the new food goes, he would not even eat this morning & his tummy was very gurgley (is that even a word? haha). I think that we're going to cook him up some ground beef and rice for dinner tonight. Thanks for the input everyone!