HELP! Male cat with idiopathic cystitis.

Hi!  I'm new to this forum and I'm not sure how all this works, so I'm just going to tell my story and hope that someone out there can give me advice.  I recently found out that my 6 yr. old male cat (his name is Bash) has feline idiopathic cystitis.  A couple of months ago, he had a urinary blockage and my husband and I had to rush him to the vet for surgery.  Now he's developed FIC.  We knew something else was going on because all of a sudden he started peeing all over the house.  He'd go for a long period of time without peeing and then all of a sudden he would pee and it would be wherever he happen to be.  The vet put him on an antibiotic and gave us some material to read about the condition, including stress-related issues and diet change. 

Bash has just about ruined the carpet in my house.  My husband and I spent last weekend with a steam cleaner trying to get the pee and odor out of the carpet in one of our bedrooms.  The vet said the only thing we could do as far as that is to put down wooden floors throughout the house, but we can't afford that.  I have some major health issues of my own which makes it very hard for me to be continually scrubbing our house.  While we're trying to figure out what we're going to do about this situation, we have created a "kitty room" for Bash in our basement.  Our basement is as big as our house.  I have a daybed down there that has a blanket on it plus "his" favorite blanket.  He has his food, a fountain water bowl (recommended by vet), his toys, and his litter boxes.  We are pretty tidy people so our basement doesn't have a whole lot of stuff in it.  Washer/dryer...a few boxes.  But as a whole, Bash has the run of the downstairs.  For the first few days, he meowed off and on about being limited to that space, but now he seems to have accepted it.  My husband and I both go down to the basement in the mornings before work and then in the evenings and play with him and spend time loving on him.  In fact, we laugh that he actually gets more attention now than he ever has.  LOL

Thing is....I feel guilty about making him live in the basement.  But I don't know what else to do.  He's neutered and his front claws are removed, so letting him live outside is out.  I love the little thing and I don't want to give him up and put him in a shelter or adopt him out.  Does anyone have any suggestions for us?  We are so confused and are trying to find the best solution for all, including Bash.  I'm probably in more distress right now than Bash is....HELP!! 

I'm sorry your cat has FIC.  Ritz has FLUTD, a similar condition.

What solution did you use when you steam cleaned the carpet?  Only an enzyme cleaner will really get the smell out; you and I won't smell it, but your cat will.

What is Bash'es background:  how long have you had Bash, when were her claws declawed?

And, what are you currently feeding Bash?

Thanks.

Ritz, thanks for responding.  I've had Bash since he was a kitten.  He was one of a litter that my sister's cat had.  Precious little guy, long gray hair, great personality.  He's the one in my picture.  I had his claws removed when he got old enough so basically since he was a kitten.  We are feeding him Purina Diets Urinary UR-ST-OX that our vet recommended. 

We bought a steam cleaner ourselves a couple of years ago and have been using the Bissell Pet Stain and Odor formula.  We've also tried using "home remedies" such as a vinegar solution and baking soda and peroxide.  The smell is better but still there to some degree.

Are you feeding the dry or wet version?  To help prevent blockages, the cat really really needs to increase his hydration.  Lots of water.  Avoid dry food.  (I fed raw.)

FIC can be stress related (Ritz' is); I would suggest Feliway plug ins and perhaps Rescue Remedy.  Both are available on Amazon for much cheaper than pet stores.  His paws may be hurting him after all this time because he is declawed, so he may not like the litter in the litter box.  I would try really soft, fine litter.  Maybe put out two boxes downstairs, two different litters, and see which ones he uses.  Remember, if you can smell the urine, your cat definitely can, and may continue to pee on those spots.  Try to find a carpet shampoo specifically for urine removal.  I use Natures Miricale (Ritz throws up.)

Was a urinalysis done either at the time of blockage or when the FIC diagnosis was made. Generally, when the diagnosis is idiopathic cystitis, that means the cause is unknown and neither antibiotics nor prescription food is called. Antibiotics would be for treating an actual bacterial infection. The Rx food would be urine acidification, usually for struvite crystals. If neither of these are present, then there is no reason for them.

For FIC, two things are recommended, diet change and stress reduction. Diet should be wet meaty foods only, no dry, no grains. Moisture is key to keep his system flushed out. Also, stress is thought to play a role in FIC. Play time is good as well as reducing any other stress factors.

A urinalysis has been done both times that he was been treated by the vet.  He has had an infection both times.
 

So your cat has an actual Urinary Tract Infection, not idioathic cystitis. Was a culture and sensitivity done to determine which bacteria was present? Without that, the vet is guessing with the antibiotics. It sounds like the antibiotics given did not clear the infection completely if it came back in less than 2 months. If the bacteria was e.coli or klebsiella, the use of d-mannose has been known to be very helpful with stubborn cases where the bacteria burrows into the bladder walls.

By the way, the urinary food your vet recommended will do nothing for infections.

I do agree with vball that if it is a definite bacterial infection, that's not really by strict definition idiopathic. In medicine idiopathic usually means "without a known cause" .
But many vets now seem to just be using FIC to mean ALL cases of what they used to call FLUTD . including infection and crystals. I suppose because so many cases WERE idiopathic. But it does seem odd to use it as a blanket term. but that's what I have seen.

Anyway, yeah, with it coming back so soon, it sounds like maybe a differnt antibiotic and / or a longer course of treatment was needed.

They need to get the urine sample directly from the bladder via cystocentesis, and they need to do a urine culture and sensitivity. That means they wait to see if a bacterial culture will grow, then see what antiobiotics it is sensitive too so they know what is best to treat it.

And also I agree, the diet would not help with infection. That's for crystals. Did he also have crystals?

Vball & Maewkaew, thanks so much for your input.  I guess I'm not explaining all of this very well.  Everything that y'all mentioned has been done.  We are waiting for the culture results to come back.  When he initially became sick, he had a blockage, crystals, infection....he stayed at the vet's for almost a week.  We just about lost him.  He finally got to come home and did good for a while but then he started peeing outside the litter box again and it had a red tint.  So we pretty much knew he had an infection.  Prior to the blockage, we had taken Bash a vet who did nothing for him really and we didn't like him at all.  With the blockage, we went to a new vet and we really like him.  Very helpful and thoughtful and good with Bash.  I think our vet gave us the FIC stuff more for our own information and to help us make adjustments in our home for Bash.

Bash seems to be doing better.  Although it bothered me at first to have him separated from all of us (me, husband, dog, other cat), I think it has been good for him.  He's very relaxed downstairs.  He has his own littler box so I've been able to keep track of whether or not he is using it and how much. 

The change in diet was for the crystals.  I'm now feeding him wet and dry urinary food.  We'll see how things go from here. 

Hi Melanie7301 

Firstly I just need to say how pleased I am to have found your thread. It's so nice to know that there are others out there suffering the same frustrations as me. I've been feeling very alone and very guilty about being so frustrated! 

We have a 5 year old male Birman called Bobby Dazzler who was diagnosed with FIC about 8 months ago. He's now had a bout of it almost every 2 months since he was diagnosed, and we've ended up at the vets with him each time. We're having all the same problems that you described in your post. This morning I woke up to cat poop on the kitchen work surface and broke down in tears. I'm trying my best to keep on top of the cleaning, but I feel like house is just covered in cat pee and poop. I found some poop in the fireplace yesterday and I had no idea how long it had been there. I'm at my wits end.

Like you we've changed him onto a wet food only diet, daily fresh water, I am scooping his litter every few hours and i'm fully cleaning the box out once a week. We have made him an outdoor run in the yard so that he can go outside unaccompanied, we've bought a big cat tree for climbing etc etc etc. 

The main problem that i'm having is actually for the week or so after Bobby is all better and clearly no longer in pain. By then he's so used to just peeing and pooping around the house, that it just seems like he's too lazy to go back to the litter box, and so just continues to go wherever and whenever. I have to retrain him to use the litter box every single time he's had a bout of FIC. I'm considering having to close him in the bathroom at night so that he doesn't have the run of the house, but I feel like this is cruel. I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced this and has any suggestions of how to deal with it? 

I don't get the impression the vets that we've spoken to have any real experience of actual life with a FIC cat, as they all just seem to say 'oh, it's just something you've got to live with'. Does this mean that for potentially the next 15 years I'm going to be cleaning up cat pee and poop from every corner of my house for 2 weeks every other month? Or has anyone found a way that this side of the illness can be contained? I like the idea of a cat basement or similar, but we just don't have the spare space for that. I don't want to keep him shut in the bathroom either. 

I'm definitely getting to the end of my tether with it, but am feeling like a terrible human being for making this about me and not him! 

Anyway, thanks for reading and I look forward to any replies  

LaurieHK

I'm definitely getting to the end of my tether with it, but am feeling like a terrible human being for making this about me and not him! 
Anyway, thanks for reading and I look forward to any replies  

LaurieHK

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LaurieHK, you are facing the same problems that humans have with their children who have chronic sickness. People will be more tolerant of hearing about your problems with a human child than with a beloved pet.

I don't know that I have any solutions for you, but I do have a lot of moral support!  {{{HUGGS}}}

I have had a couple of cats with cystitis:  We lost one because neither we or the vet knew what to do.  The second cat underwent surgery to remove the blocked part of his urethra and reroute it out his stomach.  From then on, this poor boy was either in a restricted part of the house, or outside in the yard.  And he knew he wasn't right, but he made the best of it.  When we moved to my family's farm, he loved being outside.  So he ended up with a good quality of life in his last half of it.

This does not sound like it is your particular problem, but I hope this post will be helpful in some small way.