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Old March 3rd 10, 11:46 AM posted to alt.med.veterinary,alt.pets.cats,rec.pets.cats.community,rec.pets.cats.health+behav
Stormmee
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Default Male cat FLUTD UTI problems

agree with all of this except the wet food part, my cat had this in a
hidious way, never a symptom until after i started them on dry wellness, now
they are all on dry c/d and doing well... but that water bit is most
important, Soft
"jmc" wrote in message
...
Suddenly, without warning, jamina1 exclaimed (3/2/2010 12:10 PM):
I have a male cat, neutered - probably about 3-5 years old. He's been
happy and healthy these 8 months that I have owned him, but suddenly
two weeks ago he started peeing much more frequently and then taking
forever at the box. I knew this was a UTI so I took him in.

Vet did urinalysis and determined that there were crystals in the
urine. Vet also gave me 10 days of Baytril to administer. Vet provided
24 cans of Royal Canin urine health food. My cat refused to touch the
stuff.

As a bit of a back story, cat has been eating holistic food the whole
time he's been with me - mainly Eagle Pack chicken dry kibble. I have
now switched to Wysong Uretic formula as of 2 weeks ago to hopefully
replace the prescribed food he will not eat.

The cat greatly improved with the antibiotics but the administration
of them was irregular. I'd come home from work and find that he had
spit out the morning pill sometime during the day, so I'm not sure
exactly how much of the 20 pills he kept down. I know that the last
3-4 days were 100% though because I got pill pockets.

2 days after the antibiotics are gone, symptoms reoccur and there is
blood in the urine. I go to emergency vet who performs blood work and
says its clean. They confirm crystals in urine and give him a shot of
antibiotics and painkiller. They give me painkillers to be given
orally for the next few days. Vet says that he thinks its just the
crystals causing issues and the diet change will fix it.

My problem is that I've already spent close to $600 on kitty and I
can't afford much more. He won't eat the prescribed food but is the
Wysong good for this problem? I don't want to have to go back to the
vet, I want this problem to go away without stressing the cat more
than he already is. I've heard Apple Cider Vinegar is good to acidify
the urine. I'm also giving cranberry powder with wet food once a day.
I have a stash of Doxycycline pills left over from a cat who passed
away recently - could I safely administer this to prevent further
infection?

My regular vet is sort of gung-ho on all sorts of procedures and is
extremely expensive. I took my cat in liver failure to him last year
and spent $800 for a day of care + euthanasia. You can see why I'm
worried about cost.


Did your vet talk about convincing your cat to drink more water, and to
get him off of dry food? You need to do both. I've been fighting Meep's
cystitis (crystals) problem for years.

I've posted this many times, but in short this is what I do, and it's been
very successful:

1. Add water bowls all over the house. Monitor their use. Keep bowls in
places where he's drinking. Get a pet fountain, that helps a lot.

2. WET FOOD. Doesn't matter at first if it's good quality or bad, just
get him eating wet. May be a hard slog - took me FOUR YEARS to get Meep
100% on wet. Now we're working on getting her off the junk food and
eating higher quality stuff. Wellness Chicken and Herring is usually
acceptable. She's still getting a good bit of Fancy Feast though.

3. Glucosamine supplement - it coats the bladder. Cosequin is fine if
you can afford it, but with the blessing of my vet, I use a joint
supplement from Dr. Fosters and Smith instead. She has arthritis too, so
that works.

During times of high stress, like when we move, I've also had her on
Amitryptyline (sp) which works well to reduce her anxiety levels.

Get him off the dry food though. Meep continued to have cystitis attacks
even on the Royal Canin Urinary. A diet of 100% Fancy Feast cans, and
she's been Cystitis free for years now. One time I gave in and tried
adding dry - within a month she had another attack.

Good luck. Cystitis is so much more serious in male cats. If you cannot
control it, there is an operation that essentially turns him into a girl.
There's folks here who've had it done, and are better able to speak to the
effectiveness of that treatment.

jmc