Cat cystitis

There_Goes_Trouble

Any ideas anyone?

My cat has got cystitis. The vet thinks it's ideopathic, caused by stress when a dog I was looking after snapped at her.

(he'd been here before and was fine with the cats, he was asleep, I think she woke him and he snapped at her. Didn't make contact, but really frightened her.)

Since then she's been using the litter tray tonnes and peeing around the house too.

She's been to the vets, she's had tests, xrays, scans - you name it! I had no idea cystitis could be so expensive!!

Anyway. Kidney function is normal. There are no stones or crystals anywhere. There's no bacteria in her bladder/urine. Bladder has been flushed. Basically, the vet can't find anything wrong with her hence idiopathic.

It's been nearly 3 weeks now, the offending dog went home 2 weeks ago.

At the moment she's on Cystease, and we have just started her on a 7 day course of Zylkene today. I'm ordering a feliway diffuser too. Previously she's had antibiotics (before the tests showed no bacteria) vetegesic, and metacam. None of those have seemed to help.

Could it just be stress? If so, why hasn't it got better by now?

Does anyone have any ideas of anything else I could try? (Of course I will run any suggestions by my vet first, I'm due to phone her on Wednesday.)

leoetal19

hi
has your vet mentioned FLUTD
feline lower urinary tract disorder (i think!)
one of mine has it-hes a stress head too and when hes stressed his bladder goes into spasm and he has this enormous desire to empty his bladder literaly constantly every time even a drop of urine hits it
the way to manage it is to keep him calm-so lots of feliway etc but the other key thing is to push lots of water/fluids which helps-we have a syringe for when its really bad but we encourage water all the time-a cat drinking fountain, tap running when we are home and water all round the house
seems to help so no attacks for ages and ages-but this is stress related-look it up you may find some tips??

There_Goes_Trouble

Thank you, that's very helpful.

gravitytolls

My mum's cat had this, they brought a dog into the home.

Several courses of antibiotics, she became a really poorly kitty, and ended up needed an op to ....., ooh I can't quite recall now. Basically a part of her internals popped out, it was put back, but prolapsed again, and she needed an op to remove it, was kept in hospital until the inflammation had subsided and the crystals were under control.

Seems she's had it for some time, she never liked to be picked up. once she'd recovered from the op, she didn't object at all, so i think there was always some tenderness there.

Vet said some cats are prone to it, most are not. Mum took Bluebell to the vet, because she started peeing in odd places, other than the litter tray, and I suggested water infection. Vet also said dry food can exacerbate crystal forming moggies, so she now feeds her primarily wet food.

Since the op she's been a different cat, she's more sociable, tolerates the dog and gives her the odd clout if she's being a complete pain, rather than hiding from her, she's out on weight and seems really happy. Poor thing, I think she'd been suffering discomfort ever since mum adopted her and no one ever knew.

Sorry, long dull story, but I hope your puss feels better soon.

There_Goes_Trouble

Thanks.

Molly's not really very keen on wet food, I've tried all sorts especially recently, but she's just not interested. I can't leave food down in the hope she'll come back to it because my other cat will just scoff it. I have got my own dog - used to have two, they were here before the cats. Molly was born in a house with dogs. I also work with dogs so have always brought dogs home for overnight stays. She's never been 100% keen with visiting dogs for the first few hours, but once they've started to settle in she seems ok about it and goes about her business as usual. This one incident was a one off, I think she must have disturbed the sleeping dog as she went past and startled him.

She's picked at some wet food tonight and has had 7ml water from a syringe, trouble is she's not keen on that either so I don't want to cause her more stress by doing it. She has 2ml with her meds in it (because I can't mix her meds with wet food), then I gave her 5ml extra but she didn't like it. She's never been interested in dripping taps although to be honest the cats are not allowed on the kitchen work tops anyway, so she can't actually get to the tap.

I'm starting to worry now, I'm going to a wedding in April and will be away 2 nights. My friend is coming in to feed etc but she won't manage syringing anything. There's no one else I can ask since all my family will also be at the wedding.... *sigh*

leoetal19

oh poor you, they are such a worry arent they?
my boy with the FLUTD is an indoor cat and somehow managed to severe his achilles escpaing from a firework on bonfire night so we had over£2k of treatment (insured pheew!!) on that and trying to keep him unstressed with a cast on was so hard!! we literally spent every hour sat with him for weeks between us
my dd gets married next year and though we are booking a room at the venue i wont use it as i will have to come home to sort the cats because, as you say everyone else will be at the wedding!!
the other thing that helped max was getting a few more litter trays and placing them around the house-he settled on one of the ones with a 'roof' on and now only uses that
with the water-cats prefer it away from the food for some reason so try leaving a bowl somewhere else?
oh and mine arent allowed on the kitchen tops either-they like to jump in the bath and drink from the dripping tap!
good luck xxx

There_Goes_Trouble

Thanks.

Yes they are a worry. I'm hoping Molly is better and off all meds by April. The wedding is a five hour drive away so no popping home for me!

I can try more litter trays although to be honest there aren't really any more places to put them, it's a small-ish 2 up 2 down and the trays have to be somewhere the dog can't get to.... yeuck!!!

I can easily move the water bowl. There is one bowl downstairs which all the animals use, and another upstairs which is cats only (dog not allowed upstairs, it's cat territory).

*sigh* I just feel so bad for her.

GSXR6

My vet advised me to mix in water with food just to help. Add a small amount because at each feed to get them used to it.

tankgirl1

Rather than just move the water bowl, I would be inclined to add in a couple more. Many cats love eating/drinking from heights - I used to have a water bowl on top of a chest of drawers, which was always the favourite one!

Extra litter trays might be a pain (believe me, I know - cat poo eating dog here too!), but they really can make a HELL of a lot of difference! I got taught both at VN school, and by a vet behaviourist, that the winning formula is;

number of trays needed = no of cats in house + one extra

Yes its a pain in the proverbial, but cats are such contrary creatures, and it matters to them.

My other suggestions would be vet check up & investigation (done), feliway (done), zylkene (done), and just to try and keep your home life and furniture as predictable as possible for kitty.

Is there any chance that there is a new cat in the neighbourhood? Even an indoor cat can get stressed by a bully cat glaring at them thru a window!

imaginarynumber

Not sure if either of these would help

Cranberry Relief
http://www.naturaldogs.co.uk/store/cranberry-relief-50gm.html

and

Cat urinary support
http://www.naturaldogs.co.uk/store/urinary-support-gel-cats.html

The active ingredients seem to be similar for both, ie cranberry and oregon grape root.


You could always see if the vet thinks they will help.