is my cat in heat?

[[Have anyone else heard of this whole q-tip "fix" before? I couldn't
believe her vet actually instructed her to do that when she first told me
about it but I must admit that it seemed to help a little. Either way it
was a pretty crazy thing to watch; I doubt I'll forget it anytime soon.

BTW both kittens were spayed shortly thereafter.]]

The closest I've come to hearing anything of the sort is something that
I've read breeders do for cats that they don't intend to breed right at
that moment, but don't want to spay because they intend to breed them
later.

I'm told there is a glass rod that mimics the male cat's member, including
the spines on said member. Since the spines trigger the female cat to
ovulate, once the male cat withdraws his member from the female, a person
who knows how can apply the glass rod, trigger the cat to ovulate, and
help bring that particular "in heat" episode to a close. (I welcome
correction if I've got my details wrong on this score. It's been a long
time since I read about this.)

The last time I had female cats who needed to be spayed was 15 years ago.
At that time, vets waited until the cat was 6 months old before spaying
them. The cats were younger than that when I got them from the shelter, so
I got instructed to take the cats to be spayed in October (when they would
be 6 months old).

On October 1, the day she turned 6 months old, Melody promptly went into
heat. Aaargh. I called the vet and asked for advice. All I was told was to
wait a week and bring them in. (I'm not sure why they didn't want to spay
her while she was in heat.) But by the fifth day, I couldn't take it
anymore, plus I was afraid the OTHER cat would end up going into heat,
too. (Harmony was two weeks younger than Melody.) I wound up bringing both
cats in for spaying on October 5, with Melody at the tail-end of being in
heat. The procedure went fine, thank goodness.

But I wasn't offered any advice on how to relieve the cat's symptoms while
she was in heat. All I was told was to wait it out. But that was 1990.
Goodness knows what advice is out there now. And since the current wisdom
includes spaying/neutering cats as young as 8 weeks old, I won't ever have
to wait long enough to risk having a kitten go into heat before bringing
her to the vet to have the surgery done.

Donna