pdsa petaid practices and pre-existing conditions

skoop

Hi I currently live in a city with a pdsa pet hospital. I am fortunate to have had my cat treated there of late. He seems to have chronic cystitis but not caused by an infection ususally. (Although he has had an infection of late.) He's a rescue cat and has suffered from urinary incontinence for some time although he seems happy and settled here now. He had full investigations, xrays, blood tests etc which revealed nothing serious. He has been on cystease for about three weeks now I think and that seems to have helped with the incontinence. He had to have antibiotics last week too as he seemd to have got an actual infection as well. I'm imagining he will be on cystease for the forseeable (although I don't know I guess the vet may stop it?)

Anyway...I'm going to be moving to a town soonish with petaid practices rather than a hospital. I will still be on some housing benefit and will want to register with a practice. I've rung a couple already to see what they say. One's going to get back to me because they didn't have anyone in the know available to tell me about it all. Another told me they may not accept a pet who is already on medication. Then they said they might but he had to have a full health check first for the vet to decide whether to take him on. I'm worried now that I won't be able to register my pet for petaid. Is this standard practice do you know?

lowis

i have no idea, but just wanted to say i wish you well and hope you are able to get the help you need x

Wolfsbayne

As far as im aware, as long as you are entitled to receive care from any pdsa then it shouldn't matter about pre-existing conditions.

supersaver66

If its PDSA or PDSA funded private vet then having a pre-existing condition will not matter, you should get in touch with the nearest PDSA and tell them the difficulties you are having and see what they suggest as Im sure they have agreements with vets in towns where they may not cover.

smcm

If you live within an alotted post code catchment area that has a PDSA Pet Aid Hospital (PAH) and are in receipt of either housing or council tax benefits you can get treatment at that hospital.
If there is no PAH in your area there will usually be a Pet Aid Practice you can register with. Contact the Sunderland helpline 0800 731 2502 and they will be able to advise you where your nearest Pet Aid Practice is.
At the Pet Aid Practice you need to register your pet in advance and as far as I am aware it is that vets discretion as to whether they take you on. The condition your cat has (FLUTD/intersitial cystitis/ sterile cystitis) is a multifactorial disease that is unfortunately very expensive to treat in some cases. I would be very surprised if your cat would continue on cystease at the Pet Aid Practice. It costs about £3/capsule (cost price to the PDSA) and is not proven to work - some of the specalists used to say it helps but they have gone a littel quiet on this now.
The main things you can do - that are cheap - are feeding on a wet diet, tinned food or sachets and you could even put water through it. If you don't have any more pets - don't get one. If your cat is overweight get the fat off him. And try to reduce stress in any way you can - a new sofa or carpet can be stressful for a cat. Use a feliway plug in and zylkene capsules around times of suspected stress.
Sorry for the long post but hope it helps!

~Chameleon~

Did he suffer cystitis when you took him on from the rescue? If so then most rescues will actually cover the cost of ongoing veterinary treatment. Have you spoken to them about it?

skoop

Thanks all.

I was only going to ever have the one cat so that's ok. I didn't know about cystease not working so well - will wait to see what the pdsa suggest next. He's not overweight or on dry food (since I got him - he was before). He goes outside and stuff. (which he likes). Unfortunately feliway diffuser made no difference over two months. I'm giving him zylkene myself at the moment. I don'tknow if it's making any diffeence or not. His incontinence has been less frequent. He's had that at the same time as the cystease so I might have confused the issue. If the cystease is not shown to work I guess that's not too much of a problem anyway if he doesn't get it. I'll see what the pdsa hospital say next.

I have emailed the rescue centre recently but not heard back yet. They were not fully aware of his condition at the time they gave him to me. Thought he was deliberately peeing in the new home that he had not settled into. He had been to the vets and had the blood tests, xrays and urine analyses that he's recently had again at the pdsa. All these things showed no problems then either- ie not kidney disease etc, stones or crystals etc. (except for blood in the urine) I think they hoped once he was less stressed in my home he'd be ok. Unfortunately not...and he doesn't seem stressed at all - very relaxed, playful, cuddly etc but the problem seems really persistent. (He has been with me 9 months now.) He hates the trips to the vets though. I try to make them as little stress as possible for him but there'sa limit to what you can do.