The 10 Most Overlooked Cat Health Problems + Holistic Remedies!

Our new cat Cassian, he already has some health problems and they're things I really want to get on top of early, prevent anything serious from happening. So today's video we're going to be covering the 10 most common cat health problems along with my safe natural and effective at-home remedies. Are you looking to learn more about natural pet health and wellness? You've come to the right place. Click the link to subscribe to Veterinary Secrets. And these are the most common cat health problems that I saw in veterinary practice. Number one CKD or chronic kidney disease. This is one of the most common problems we're seeing in our older cats. Any cat past the age of 10 and it's estimated upwards of one third of cats past the age of 13 they're going to develop chronic kidney disease. And in general it's something which you know we can't reverse. Once it happens it's estimated upwards of three quarters of the kidney function is gone. You want to do whatever you can to potentially prevent this from ever happening to your cat. My first suggestion, you want to ensure that you're feeding a cat a low phosphorus, high moisture content diet. Something like this dry kibble. 100% you never want to be feeding this to your cat. Not only is it really moisture depleted, it's got relatively high levels of phosphorus. And one of the ways to know that if they're including ground up bones in it, especially i.e. often the foods that have fish in them, they're going to be higher in phosphorus. And we know phosphorus, that is the single biggest important mineral which is damaging the kidneys, leading to kidney disease. Something like this, a canned or a homemade cat food which is not fish-based, ideally a single ingredient high protein food. This is a canned turkey one. Rich in moisture, low in phosphorus, the ideal food for a cat to avoid kidney disease. I encourage you to minimize vaccines. We now think that there's a correlation between the vaccines our cats are getting, especially if the repeated vaccine is year after year. The production of autoantibodies which then are damaging organs, specifically the kidneys. So you want to look at a minimal vaccine protocol. We don't want to be giving our cats vaccines year after year. Last thing you want to do is be creating antibodies that are then attacking the kidneys. Consider adding in some type of anti-inflammatory supplement that can protect the kidneys against the immune-mediated damage. One simple easy supplement, consider an omega-3 fatty acid supplement. We have our own krill oil supplement. You can also consider the fish oil supplement. My last point is you may want to consider some type of phosphorus binder. So something that's going to be into your cat's food that's going to bind some of the additional phosphorus. The easiest way to do that, additional calcium. And that can come in a couple different forms. This is calcium carbonate, really just ground eggshell. And some of that calcium, it'll bind some of that phosphorus. If you're looking at doses of one eighth of eighth of a teaspoon daily of this calcium carbonate supplement can do that. But also in our supplement, Dr. Jones's Ultimate Feline Health Formula, we have additional calcium, no additional phosphorus. So it can bind some of that phosphorus, potentially decreasing the likelihood of kidney disease. Cassian here, he is on this, our ultimate omega-3 fatty acid supplement. We're on this kitty cat. He gets two of these ones a day and he's also on ultimate feline. We're gonna try and keep your kidneys healthy kitty cat. Number two, dental disease. I'm bringing this up as number two because Cassian here, his gums are fairly healthy. I won't show you that. But his breath, it is not good. He's already got bacteria in there which have the potential to actually cause gum inflammation, cause gum disease. So this is what I'm doing to help him. You can potentially do to help your own cat. You can consider this seaweed based supplement. In some places it's known as PlaqOff. There's a new one called Cleanse It In. But it's using a seaweed called Ascophyllum Sodum, really rich in iodine. Some of that high iodine content, it's killing some of the bacteria that are causing dental disease. I mean ideally I would brush Cassian's teeth. That's not gonna happen. It's a half of a scooper. This little scooper here, that teeny little amount per cat daily. Number two, consider additional probiotics. Here's a good one here, Dr. Hoon's ultimate probiotic formula for dogs and cats. The composition of the bacteria that are within your cat's mouth, that oral microbiome, that plays a really key role in whether or not they develop dental disease. And for whatever reason, some of our animals, they just don't have the appropriate microbiome. So if you can provide some of that bacteria, you can potentially play a big role in preventing dental disease from happening. And I'm just starting Cassian on this now. So you need a good multi-strain probiotic formula. You want one with high CFUs, a high number of bacteria. Somewhere between three to five billion per capsule. Something like this. But what you want to do is just sprinkle them over top of your cat's food. Because you don't want them to swallow it. You want some of the bacteria to be within their mouth, within their dental cavity, right? So you open the capsules up, sprinkle it over top of their food. And the third point, and this is something new I'm trying for Cassian, is consider something that can help remove some of the pathogenic, odor-causing bacteria from their tongue. Because that's often where it starts. So this specific cat bowl from Lickymat, the Lickymat oval, it is a really good option. As you can see there, it's got these ridges. The food goes on top of this ridged part, the center of the bowl. Your cat has to lick and lick and lick, do a really good job of fully cleaning off these ridges. And by doing that, he's removing some of that pathogenic bacteria. Right? He's cleaning his tongue properly. When that happens, his breath is better. He's got less less pathogenic bacteria in his mouth. And I can just show you here how it works with Cassian. A bit of canned food. This is the chicken, which he prefers. Then I'm going to sprinkle a little probiotic capsule on top. Oh, yummy kitty. Now that he's not camera shy, I've mixed in the probiotic, mixed it in with the canned food. And this way he's going to lick the probiotic up, orally. We spread it over top of the food. But he's really got to work hard. He's got to really work hard at getting that last bit of food off the base of the bowl. By doing that, he's removing some of that food-causing bacteria. Number three, internal and external parasites. Things like worms, roundworms, tapeworms, fleas. Really common in our cats. I'm going to show you three options. First, diatomaceous earth. For fleas especially. It can be used within the cracks and crevices in your house. You're just going to sprinkle it in the corners, interrupting that flea life cycle. You do this once a week in your house. Number two, you can sprinkle this natural mineral on top of your cat. What I like to do is take the diatomaceous earth, put it into a little spice bottle like this. This is coriander, no longer. It's now diatomaceous earth. And what do you have? Got this little opening. So you can then sprinkle it over top of your cat like this. Lightly sprinkle it. Then you're just going to use a flea comb to evenly spread it through his fur. Do this once a week. It's 100% natural product. Diatomaceous earth is safe for our cats to ingest. And what it does, the fine microscopic shards, they pierce the outer exoskeleton of the flea, killing the flea. It can also be used internally for parasites. It's not as effective as external. Topical use for fleas. Standard cat dose, about a quarter of a teaspoon per 10 pounds of body weight daily. The most effective internal de-warmer, no question, it is the ground seed of this. These are ground pumpkin seeds. I just had dried ones that are unsalted from the co-op. I ground them in my little grinder here. The active ingredient in pumpkin seeds, curbitacin. That's the one which is specifically working on the parasites, acting as a natural de-warmer. Standard cat dose, about a quarter of a teaspoon, this amount here, per 10 pounds of cat daily. Typically, you're going to be doing at least once a day for seven days, seven days and or seven days on. Then the third natural insecticide, one I've never actually discussed for our cats. It's using this, none other than something that cats really, really, really like. This is an all-natural catnip oil spray. There are very few essential oils safe for our cats, and catnip is one of those. The active ingredient in catnip is nepetalactone, and it's a proven, really a factor of natural insecticide. The one I've never discussed in the past, I don't know, I wasn't aware you can actually get it as a spray, but I found it as a spray, super excited. If I had to choose one spray to put on Cassian to prevent fleas, this would be it. If Cassian were to go outside, which he's not, I would just mist him with the catnip spray. I would do that a couple times a week to prevent these little critters. There! Number four, feline lower urinary tract disease. I mean, this is just so, so prevalent, and I felt like I saw a cat a few times a week, at least in practice, for over 20 years. I mean, just so many cats having feline lower urinary tract disease. Primarily, though, in our cats, this is bladder inflammation. It's not an actual bacterial infection. We know a big, big underlying cause of And then when you have a cat that is being fed this stuff here, like this dry-only kibble, which is very moisture depleted, can be high in certain minerals, such as magnesium and phosphate, which then can turn into crystals, like struvite crystals. That's where they can get their problem. So for my first big suggestion, if you haven't got the big theme of today's video, eliminate the kibble. Period. Stop feeding your cat kibble. The next big thing to prevent urinary tract disease, we need to increase the moisture in their diet. Then a couple supplements to consider, one ongoing to prevent ongoing urinary tract disease, additional glucosamine, chondroitin, pretty well studied, you know, which can be pretty beneficial, decreasing bladder inflammation, helping increase the strength of the bladder lining, the bladder wall. One easy way to do that, a supplement such as ours, Ultimate Feline Health Formula, has additional glucosamine, has additional chondroitin. And then if there are ever bouts of recurrent bladder inflammation, which sometimes happens in our cats, especially our cats experiencing anxiety, our indoor cats, consider some type of cannabidiol product. So for instance, our Ultimate CBD for Dogs and Cats, this cannabidiol, the CBD itself, number one, you can concentrate in the bladder, decreasing bladder inflammation. That's what you want to do. Secondarily, it can also help manage anxiety in your cats. So as low as giving, you know, a simple one drop a day, three milligrams per cat per day, that may be enough to potentially prevent this from ever happening to your cat. Nevermind, it's also really good for our cats for arthritis. For any cats that are experiencing recurrent urinary tract disease, I think it's a great option. Gastrointestinal problems, vomiting, diarrhea, hairballs, hmm, pretty common in our cats. Here's what I'm doing to prevent this from happening to Cassian. First and foremost, you're just feeding a cat appropriate diet. No supplements needed here. You're just feeding something which your cat is specifically designed to break down and digest, which is meaning this, this animal protein rich in moisture. When you have a higher protein, higher moisture food that's being fed to your cat, they're much more likely to not have ongoing GI T disorder, right? They don't have to deal with hairballs, less likely to deal with vomiting, diarrhea. But if they start to have a problem with hairballs and some of our, especially our long haired cats or cats that excessively groom themselves, you want to add in some form of additional fiber. Here's a good option. An expensive option, ground flax seeds, even just a small amount, a half a teaspoon daily to your cat's food. That can go a long way in number one, just normalizing their intestinal tract, ensuring that those hairballs are working their way through the intestinal tract, not resulting in a problem. Flax is also a great source of soluble and insoluble fiber, and it also provides health benefits in form of the additional essential fatty acids. If you have a cat that is vomiting, has diarrhea, has ongoing issues with constipation, there's one simple herb you should consider. This one here, slippery elm. Slippery elm has been widely used in our cats. It's been used for cats that have kidney disease, because it's such a great antacid, it helps them feel less nauseous. It's been used for our cats that have constipation, been used for cats that are vomiting, used for cats that have diarrhea. It's really well tolerated. It's found the ground inner bark of the slippery elm tree, extremely safe, zero known side effects. This is really easy to give to your cat. You can just get the capsules here, and one 400 milliliter capsule per cat a day. Just break it open, sprinkle it into your cat's food. Then the last other point is considering an additional probiotic, like the one I just discussed. Our supplement, a good multi-strain probiotic supplement, especially if you're dealing with ongoing GIT disorders. It could be that your cat was on something like this. You know, he'd been sent home on an antibiotic, say, for urinary tract disease, which he probably didn't need. It upsets his microbiome. He loses all those good bacteria, and then he just can't metabolize his food properly. He can't absorb it. He can't break it down, resulting in ongoing issues. So often, then, a good quality probiotic helps reverse some of those problems. Number six, chronic respiratory disease, upper respiratory tract infections, so, so common in our cats. Primarily, they're viral, most commonly caused by a feline herpes virus. It can also be caused by a feline calicivirus, in some cases, even chlamydia. Just really, really common in our cats. And some cats can have these chronically. I had one cat, he had it as a kitten, never fully cleared it, similar to us having cold sores and cold sores break out. You might see puffy, watery, red eyes, nasal discharge. This guy's congested. He's sneezing. And I had my last cat, Cleo. It was a recurring poor guy. He'd get stressed, and sure enough, the herpes virus would come out. Runny eyes and sneezing. For acute onset, your cat starts to sneeze. It's happening again. A simple, easy home remedy, honey. You can take a half a teaspoon of honey, dilute it into water, give that to your cat. Do that daily for 14 to 21 days. Honey, it is great as far as number one, coating the upper respiratory tract. They're going to be less coughing. It's less irritated. Secondly, it's a great antibacterial and antiviral. And just those properties alone can specifically target the herpes virus, the calicivirus. Second, consider this product also the honey of the year, Propolis. It's probably my go-to respiratory natural product now. It concentrates really well in the respiratory tract. It is a great natural antibacterial. It's got some really impressive antiviral properties. Been well studied for respiratory disease. And it's safe for our cats. Standard cat dose, about 100 milligrams per cat daily. You want to give this somewhere between 10 to 14 days. These are 500 milligram capsules. Now, for a cat like Cassian, who's a little bit bigger, I would be inclined, if I can open this up, I'm inclined to give him a half a capsule daily. And then long term, what you want to do is potentially eliminate that virus, especially if it's a herpes virus. And for many of the cats in veterinary practice, the one thing that seemed to help do this was getting him on this amino acid L-lysine. It's got clear antiviral properties. And for whatever reason, it has a specific affinity to the herpes virus. You're looking at a pretty typical cat dose, 100 milligrams per cat daily. You need to give it for minimum 12 weeks, more like 16 weeks. You can also get it as a paste. This is a capsule. It's 1000 milligram capsules. You'll be giving a 10th of a capsule daily. You can easily give double that. It's going to do no harm. But just make sure you stick with it. Do a minimum of 12 weeks. Number seven, managing weight, specifically obesity. Well, I have an indoor cat, Cassian the cat. He's not spending a lot of time outside, spending no time. He does have a little catio outside, but he's not running around trying to hunt and do whatever. So he doesn't have a high activity level. And he really, really, really likes food. So when you have a cat that likes food, isn't doing a lot of exercise, what's that a recipe for? You're going to gain weight. So here's what I'm trying to do to help manage Cassian's weight. First and foremost, eliminate the carbs. He came and he was adopted while he was on dry cat food. Clearly, he really likes it. Like, how can you not be addicted to that glucose hit from that simple carbohydrate. But more than anything, this is what contributes to increase weight in our cat. So if you got a cat, is it all even close to being overweight, preferably only wait till you get there. First, eliminate the dry kibble. No more kibble, no more simple carbohydrates. Get your cat on what he's designed to be on. I think you get a theme of today's video. Protein. We want moisture rich, ideally single ingredient protein like this. There's 100% cage free canned chicken. And by feeding your cat this, you're eliminating that simple carbohydrate. He's going to have a much more normalized metabolism. When he doesn't have glucose spikes, he doesn't have the ability to put on that body fat. Yeah, you stick with that single protein, you're much more likely to have an appropriate weighted cat. So yeah, he's on this. You obviously want to do things like increasing your cat's activity. We've somewhat taught Cassian to fetch and he is a lot more active than he was even two weeks ago. But here's a couple of the supplements to consider which might help may help increasing metabolic rate, green tea, a small amount of green tea just given once a day offers the ability to increase your cat's metabolic rate. It's a teeny little fraction of caffeine, it's going to do no harm to your cat, but it may actually be enough just to help him normalize his weight. All the associated risks that go on with a cat gaining weight, it can mean fatty liver disease, it can mean diabetes, it can mean increased chance of arthritis, increased chances of heart disease. You want to maintain as normal weight as you can, you can just brew up a daily cup of green tea, kind of like this, let it sit steep and cool for about 20 minutes, a typical cat dose. And I've been doing this starting to do this daily with Cassian one tablespoon mixed into his water twice a day. And the rest of the green tea I drink good for me. Also good for Cassian. The third thing which may help it's being used by athletes because it can help build muscle mass plays a role in increasing metabolic rate. This here colostrum colostrum mother's first milk. Primarily we think it as immune supportive product which it is it supports the intestinal tract. Great to help counter anti inflammatory medication side effects because it does such a good job of essentially coding and repairing any intestinal lesions. But it also has all these other different ingredients in colostrum and one of one of the ingredients actually can boost and increase metabolic rate. But we're seeing with these athletes it increases muscle mass, helping increasing metabolic rate may also help increase the metabolic rate of your slightly overweight cat. Simple colostrum dose about 100 milligrams per cat daily. Number eight. This is something pretty dear to my heart because my last cat Murray, he had this diabetes. So to prevent your cat from ever becoming diabetic, right one thing that's one thing you need to know. Do not want Cassian to become diabetic. If your cat is on this again, this dry kibble, get them off the kibble like more than anything else. This dry high carb food, dry kibble that is what's going to turn your cat into becoming a diabetic. You have our cats which are not designed to digest carbohydrates, right? They don't have all associated enzymes that our dogs have. They don't have oral amylase. They don't have oral lipase. They lack other nutrients, other enzymes in that were designed to break down and store glucose. They don't have those because they're meant to digest and break down and use protein as a source of energy. So if you keep feeding your cat this stuff, right? He's not designed to break it all down. He's going to have these marks spikes in glucose because he doesn't have the associated enzymes. You can't metabolize all this, all these carbohydrates. And when that happens, his cells can become overwhelmed. All of a sudden they don't, they can't respond to the insulin property. There's too much glucose there. What happened? You turn your cat into a type two diabetic, right? Very much the same thing that's happening to many people. And in fact, with many of our cats, once we eliminate the kibble, get them on like the high protein canned cat food. I mean, I was seeing over 50% of our cats in practice responding just to that. Most of these cats that were diabetic, they had to start on insulin, but somewhere between one to four months, they could come off the insulin, especially if all the carbs were eliminated. It was just high protein, canned cat food, right? Kitty. Number two, add in additional chromium. This is one mineral. It's been widely studied, potentially being beneficial for cats that have diabetes. And it's in many of the veterinary foods that are specifically designed for diabetic cats. You know, even 20 something years ago, probably almost 30 years ago, it was introduced. So we know it can be beneficial for a cat that are diabetic, but an easy way to add in additional chromium as well as adding in additional protein, get some of this inexpensive brewer's yeast, high in protein, high in B vitamins, high in chromium, right? The dose somewhere between half to one teaspoon per cat daily. So if Cassian were to be a diabetic, he'd also be on this brewer's yeast. I wanted to mention is this, it's a new product called Peptodia. It's an oral hypoglycemic specifically targeted for cats. Very safe. It's got some great studies showing it to be effective. So it's isolated and a nutrient that's isolated from milk. And you want to try help your cat naturally. Number nine, liver disease in our cats in particular, are the most common type of liver disease, hepatic lipidosis or fatty liver disease. There are array of other different liver diseases like cholangitis, cholangiohepatitis, et cetera. Unfortunately, pretty common in our cats. So what can you do to help your cat? Back onto our theme of maintaining appropriate weight. We don't want our cats to be overweight. And by the big thing we can do, prevent that from happening. I'm going to get rid of this stuff. And what are we feeding him? Right. High protein, high moisture. You keep them at an appropriate weight. They don't have all that weight to be metabolized, which can happen if they get sick and they stop eating for two or three days. All that fat can infiltrate the liver causing fatty liver disease. Point number one, we're going to maintain their weight and appropriate weight as best we can by eliminating the kibble, high protein canned or homemade cat food, right kitty. And that could also include raw food. If your cat has to ever get liver disease, specific fatty liver disease, hepatic lipidosis, the most important treatment first and foremost is your cat needs to start eating again. So it isn't something you just kind of watch and offer him stuff. He needs to be and more than any other supplement or anything else beyond that is they need to have nutrients going back into them again and they don't want to eat because they feel nauseous. So that means these cats need to be force fed. In some cases, they need to have some type of feeding tube put in place to get them eating again. But there are some additional supplements to consider, which can help speed up healing of that liver. Things like milk thistle at a hundred milligrams per cat daily. Sammy or acid endothelial methionine about 50 milligrams per cat daily. Dandelion root, it's another great option. It just so happens that we have a specific liver support formula, which is very effective for our cats, which includes milk thistle, which includes Sammy, which includes dandelion root. Dr. Jones's ultimate liver support formula for dogs and cats. The number 10, cancer. Unfortunately, cancer, it's on the rise in our cat population and it's estimated upwards of one in five cats can develop cancer. Clearly it's multifactorial. I mean, there's many potential things that can cause cancer. There's a few things potentially you can do to give your cat to prevent this from happening. We know cats can develop a vaccine associated sarcoma, a vaccine associated cancer. So what do you do? You minimize the number of vaccines they're getting. Right. Makes sense to me. Decrease exposure to certain toxins. Like don't keep giving your cat, you know, regular flea and tick medications, especially if they don't need them. Right. They groom themselves incessantly. They're really clean animals. They're ingesting all of that. So you got to think if you sprayed yourself, you know, once a week with a flea or tick product and then ingested all of it, you're probably more likely to get cancer. Very same principle applies to our cats. Preventive supplements you may want to think about potentially prevent your cat from developing cancer. There's a lot of good research going now on with this colostrum. Probably if anything, it's this less appreciated immune supportive supplement, which we're now seriously looking for its potential uses in terms of both prevention and cancer treatment. It's just such a good all around immune supplement. Really safe, potentially really beneficial. Right. So maybe you've got a cat from a breed of cats more prone to cancer. You may want to think about having additional colostrum, 100 milligrams for 10 pounds of cat daily. If your cat is to ever get cancer, there are a number of other supplements you want to consider, which have been specifically studied for cancer and are being used in our cats. Number one, some of the medicinal mushrooms, the one with the most research is this one, turkey tail mushroom, turkey tail extract. Now it's been used for lymphoma. It's being used for a variety of the different internal cancers. Well tolerated, very safe, potentially very effective, really good at supporting the immune system. Standard dose is about 100 milligrams for 10 pounds of body weight daily. Think about using this, the sleep hormone melatonin. Melatonin is a very potent antioxidant and it just affects so many different cellular mechanisms going on in the body. So it's now being especially well studied for cancer. We know that it works well in conjunction with chemotherapy, works well in conjunction with radiation therapy, with some of the conventional treatments for cancer and can make them more effective. In fact, I was just reading one study where they were looking at a cat that had this serious type of mammary cancer, breast cancer. It's metastasized and spread. They know there's virtually no chance of survival after a year. When they put that cat on additional melatonin, all of a sudden that cat lived so much longer than was ever expected, all because of the melatonin. What they think, obviously it plays a big key role in how the cells respond to cancer, how the immune system is able to target those cancer cells. And what they're seeing is some really good results. It's especially safe. We look at a pretty typical cat dose. They're about two milligrams per cat daily. If you've got a cat that's got cancer, especially say something like mammary cancer, I have you urge you to strongly consider additional melatonin. Then think about some of the other additional cannabinoids. The medicinal cannabinoids found in the cannabinoids plant are non-zadcoactive, non-THC. There's CBD, CBC, CBG, CBN. Many of those have specific anti-cancer properties. Are they the magic cure? No, they're not. But they definitely seem to play a role in being beneficial if our animals have cancer. Our cats tolerate the cannabinoids really well. So if I were to have a cat that has cancer, I would definitely get my cat on a multi-cannabinoid blend. Something like our multi-cannabinoid blend doesn't need to be ours, but something that's going to include an array of different cannabinoids, which can help make it more likely that the immune system can recognize those cancer cells, attack those cancer cells, or make it more likely that there's going to be apoptosis. That's cancer cell death. Cassian here, he's our model cat. He already seems to have some no serious health issues, but he does have bad breath. He does have a few extra pounds. Hey, hey, hey, don't chew on my arm. He is potentially more prone to things like then diabetes, my arthritis, fatty liver disease. So I'm going to do all I can to make sure that does not happen Go through all those different common health problems, some of the different alternative remedies I suggested. You think about something simple and easy you can incorporate, make a basic change with your cat to keep them healthy in the first place. And if you had to take like one thing from this video, get rid of this, get them on to something like this, right? High protein, canned, moisture-rich cat food. You're going to go such a long way in preventing some of these serious diseases from happening. So thanks so much for watching this video. Thank you Cassian for being the star kitty cat. 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