I think Susy is having bladder problems.

Susy keeps going to her litter box, scratching and squatting for a while but doesn't seem to be able to pee. I'm going to take her to the vet first thing in the morning. Is there anything I can do to make her more comfortable in the mean time?

It's 5 pm here, vet opens at 9 am tomorrow.

If she is unable to pass ANYTHING , you might not want to wait until morning.  Does she have a history of blockages?  Do you have emergency Vets over there?  I don't want to alarm you, but blockages can be deadly, if that is what is happening. 

Oh dear, I see you posted this 12 hours ago.  How is she??

Hi MrsGreenJeans.

She managed to use her litter box during the night but it was only a really tiny amount. I'm guessing around a teaspoon full passed about 3 times. As soon as I opened the door this morning she rushed out and tried digging a hole in the garden, couldn't tell if she passed anything or not as the ground was wet.

The vet examined her, her bladder was empty and there were no blockages or stones. He's given her some antibiotics and some new food.

Dr's Care. Feline Struvite Care made by Novartis Animal Health.

Now I'm confused, this new food is dry and I thought wet was the best way to prevent blockages.

Susy has never had any problems before, but I try to feed her only wet as I thought this was better for her.

Has anyone else tried this food? 

Well...there are different thoughts on the subject.  If she didn't have any crystals in her urine at all, and never had any blockages, then I'm not sure why they prescribed this diet.  It sounds now as if she simply has an infection which is making her "think" she needs to go, just like when people get a bladder infection and always think they need to go, but only a drop or two comes out.  I'm guessing that's why he prescribed an antibiotic.  Did he diagnose a UTI?

You are correct in that some people prefer to feed a good quality canned food and make sure their cats stay well hydrated to try to prevent crystals. 

Did you ask WHY they prescribed this diet when there were no signed of crystals?  And did they say she needed to be on it for life?  Also, I'm not familiar with this particular food.  It may be called that in your part of the world, and something different over here.  I did google it and nothing came up for me. 

Yes, that's what the vet said. She "thinks" that she needs to go even though her bladder is empty. He said to continue the antibiotics for ten days, by which time the infection should have cleared up.

I'm not sure how long she is supposed to stay on this diet, he gave me a huge sack of the food for free. Fortunately she seems to really like it.

I have to take a feral cat in to be spayed in a few days, I'll get my husband to ask some more detailed questions about Susy then. I can usually follow what the vet says, but some of these complicated medical terms are beyond my Japanese ability at the moment.

I found the Novartis homepage, it seems to be a Swiss company.

http://www.ah.novartis.com/index.shtml

Maybe these products aren't available in the US?

Wow, how nice that he gave you the food for free!  I googled under Novartis AND under the name of the food AND went to the website you provided, but still can't pull up the food itself.  It will be interesting to hear what your DH learns when he talks to the Vet later this week.

that Suzy feels better very soon

Yes, he's a nice vet. He gives me all of his food samples to feed my feral colony with when they get near the sell by date.

I'll keep you updated with Susy's progress. She seems a little less grumpy today, I think that's a good sign.

Update on Susy's bladder problems.

After ten days on the antibiotics she was much better for about a week, then started repeatedly going to her litter tray, scratching and squatting again. I started her back on the same antibiotics (The vet gave me enough for  several courses) 

After a few days she seemed much better. I continued with the antibiotics for ten days but about a week after she stopped taking them she had trouble peeing again.

She isn't blocked, she manages to pass a little urine each time and pees a normal amount if she's been asleep for a few hours. She does seem to be very uncomfortable though.

We took her back to the vets again today. Tests showed no blockage but her urine was very alkaline. She was given another course of the same antibiotics and strict instructions to have ONLY the Novartis food. Apparently this food isn't for sale and is only available through a vet.

For the past month she's been having the dry Novartis food twice a day but canned wet food with a little water added every morning. The vet said the canned food is no good for her and this is what's causing her to have repeated bouts of cystitis.

Could canned food really be causing this problem?

If she does have an infection shouldn't two courses of antibiotics have cleared it up by now?

Anything I can do to keep her healthy and make her more comfortable?

Thanks for any advice, I hate to see her suffering like this.

Norachan said:

Update on Susy's bladder problems.

We took her back to the vets again today. Tests showed no blockage but her urine was very alkaline. She was given another course of the same antibiotics and strict instructions to have ONLY the Novartis food. Apparently this food isn't for sale and is only available through a vet.

For the past month she's been having the dry Novartis food twice a day but canned wet food with a little water added every morning. The vet said the canned food is no good for her and this is what's causing her to have repeated bouts of cystitis.

Could canned food really be causing this problem?

Click to expand...

Honestly, in my opinion, and what I know about nutrition and UTIs (Ritz is prone to stress-induced UTIs), I'd get a second opinion. Now, I'm not a fan of prescription food for UTIs, but I recognize sometimes that is the only therapy that works. But it seems to me to be terribly contraindicated to feed a DRY form of a Rx food for a UTI.
I couldn't find a list of ingredients in Novartis Rx food (is it under a different brand name than Novartis?), and/or whether it is available in a wet form. Maybe your vet is against non-Rx wet food, and would okay the wet form of Novartis. Still, I would get a second opinion.

If anything canned food HELPS bladder problems.  I have DeeJay my 14 year old cat who has Idiopathic Cystitis which means she has chronic inflammation in her bladder.  She used to get 2-3 bladder infections a year even on the veterinary prescribed diets.  I switched all of my cats to canned food about 4 years ago and she has only had her one recent infection which she was having other health issues as well.  As well as my boy Munchie who had a few infections, he hasn't had any either.  I do have Mini Dee who is my cerebral hypoplasia cat so I can't get her to eat canned food, she has 3 or 4 infections a year.  I wish I could get her to eat canned but it just doesn't happen.  I do know that carbohydrates aid in crystal formation.  Sometimes it takes 2 or 3 rounds of antibiotics to clear up an infection.  DeeJay's recent infection took 2 and Mini Dee's current infection is on her 2nd round of a different antibiotic, first she was on clavamox, she is now on Orbax for 3 weeks.  Have you seen this site?  http://catinfo.org/?link=urinarytracthealth  IMO your vet isn't very educated about nutrition if he is saying that canned food causes crystals.  He probably heard that from Science Diet or Purina or whomever is pushing his food that he sells.  Unfortunately vets don't get a lot of nutritional education in school.  Very few take the time to learn more about it.  I have worked for vets my whole life (my dad is a retired vet), so have seen what they know.  JMO.   Have you tried increasing the moisture your cat gets?  You can do this by adding some additional water to your cats food, getting a water fountain etc.  The site I gave you has great information about crystals and why they form etc.  I would ditch the dry food all together and use the canned with the additional water.

BUT, it might depend on what canned food you are feeding .  Since you are in Japan, maybe your canned cat food is mainly fish?  We're always heard that feeding all fish is bad for urinary health.  I could be totally wrong here and you could be feeding a great mix of low carb food, which wouldn't explain at all why your Vet would want you to completely stop the canned food.  Low stress and  lots of water....that's what I've always heard is best to prevent UTIs.  

All that being said, it IS curious that ALL the prescription food makers make dry urinary food.  Makes you wonder, huh?  And they DO seem to work, but who knows what the long term effect is on the rest of their bodies...ie diabetes, kidney disease, etc.  I think what they are really striving for is low magnesium so crystals don't form, and Dave's now makes a low magnesium canned food.  So does Holistic Select.  There are probably others too.  (just google low magnesium canned cat food).  Maybe you could have your hubby ask your Vet about them?)

Thanks everyone for your comments.

The canned food that Susy has been having is a Japanese make called Kurokan made by Aixia. The ingredients are bonito, tuna and something called Oligosaccharide. It's 13,95 protein, 0.9% carbohydrate and 82% water. I guess it's high magnesium as it's all fish.

The ingredients of the Novartis Doctor's care are corn, gelatine meal, fish meal, rice, animal fats, fish extracts and a load of other additives that I can't even translate. It's 29.5% protein,14.5% carbohydrate, 0,09% magnesium. It also contains taurine and calcium and is 10% water.

To me the canned food sounds better. How much magnesium is too much? I'm going to ask Mr Husband to e-mail the makers of Kurokan and see if we can get more information on the magnesium amounts.

She does seem a little better today even after only two doses of her antibiotics.  Having read what Dr Pierson has to stay about UTI I think stress is probably playing a big part in what is making Susy ill. For the past month we've had feral toms prowling the neighbourhood, calling for females and yowling at each other. I'm getting the TNR'd as fast as I can, but as soon as I get one tom neutered another one shows up. Susy must be upset by all the noise they're making.

She seems to be drinking more water than normal. She rarely drinks from her bowl but jumps up into the kitchen sink to lick the dripping tap. She likes rainwater too, never walks past a puddle without lapping at it. I wonder if that has any affect on her? The soil around here is volcanic, could she be ingesting anything that's bad for her bladder?

Do you think I should give her some natural yogurt as a probiotic? Three lots of antibiotics seems such a lot.

Just been to the supermarket to check out what brands of non-fish cat food they have. We can get Purina Mon Petit Roast Chicken, which I think is the same as Fancy Feast, or we can get KalKan Tasty Chicken. KalKan is the name that Whiskers market under over here.

I read that Purina wasn't very good, something about a pet food poisoning case? Not sure of the details I'm afraid.

Any opinions on either of these foods?

Everything else seems to be tuna or tuna with some other fish. Really I'd like to get the whole gang on the same food, something good quality that's going to keep them in the best of health. Meal times can be quite chaotic around here and trying to make sure Susy doesn't sneak another cat's leftovers is going to be tricky.

Ok, an all fish diet AND the stress may be the reason for her issues...hard to say.  As for those two foods you found at the grocer, I can't pull up the ingredients.  I DO think the Mon Petite is the same as Fancy Feast, but don't think it's the same as the CLASSICs, which is what we always stress is the only FF that is decent (read:  low carb)  Can you print up the ingredient list?  As to the Kalcan, the only thing I can see is that it looks like it's comparable to  Whiska Lickins Temptations, which are actually TREATS.  Is this something that is in a CAN over there?  (I'm thinking of course it is )  Can you list the ingredients of that too?

What about getting Suzy a drinking fountain since she enjoys drinking from the faucet?  Our girl used to always jump up in the sink to drink, so we got her one, and she LOVES it.  Now she rarely drinks from the faucet anymore, since she has her very own constantly running "faucet". 

Definitely feeding her probiotics would be a good thing, especially right now while she is on antibiotics.  Just don't give them at the same time of day.  I actually give my cats probiotics every day, rain or shine, and I give them the same ones I take.  I just open up the capsule and mix it in their food.  1/2 capsule in the a.m. and 1/2 in the p.m.  Yogurt works on the same principal, I'm just not sure she could ingest enough to equal the same benefits as a capsule. 

BTW, I doubt if drinking from Volcanic soil is causing the problem, otherwise most of the animals around there would be sick, wouldn't they.  And Volcanic rocks actually have some healing power.  I take zoelite everyday, which is made from crushed volcanic rock. 

Hi Mrsgreenjeans,

Sorry for not replying sooner, I had a cat-trapped-on-the-roof saga to deal with. (Finally got her down after three days, Short tailed cats just don't seem to be able to jump and climb like the long tailed ones can.) 

I haven't been able to find  Mon Petite Classics. We do have Mon Petite Ensemble but it contains rice and tomatoes, I didn't think that sounded very good.

The KalKan chicken comes in a sachet. This is the one for cats over the age of 15 but of course I've bought the stuff for cats aged 1 ~ 10 years.

http://www.the-seiyu.com/front/comm...=shopping&utm_campaign=994902397833017&gclid=

Does it look like the Whiskers one? The ingredients are chicken, beef, pork extract, guar gum and water. It also has vitamins A B1 B2 B6 E Zinc and taurine added.

I've let some of the other cats have it and it went down pretty well. I've kept Susy on the Novartis stuff so that if her problems keep coming back at least I can tell the vet I did as he suggested. She does seem a lot better, but she's not happy about having only dried food. She only ate a few mouth full's last night, turned up her nose at it this morning and is now outside stalking birds. She was feral for the first year of her life and old habits die hard, I guess.

The water fountain is a good idea. I think I'm definitely going to get her one of those. I'm just off to see what kind of probiotics the health food store stocks.

Thanks for all your suggestions.

Glad you were able to rescue the cat on the roof

HeHeHe, that website above is in ALL Japanese   BUT, in looking just at the package, I can tell you it is not the same as the Whiska Lickin's Temptations, because those are hard treats, and the package I can see is like a pouch with sauce, etc.  And from what you typed, it sounds just fine

If Suzy doesn't eat the Vet's food, she's got to eat something.  Hopefully if she catches a bird, you don't have birds around there with the bird flu or whatever it is that birds carry.  

How's she doing other than not liking that food.  Still seeming to feel better? 

mrsgreenjeens said:

HeHeHe, that website above is in ALL Japanese

  BUT, in looking just at the package, I can tell you it is not the same as the Whiska Lickin's Temptations, because those are hard treats, and the package I can see is like a pouch with sauce, etc.  And from what you typed, it sounds just fine

Ah, sorry about that. I though there might be an English translation if you clicked on it outside of Japan.

If Suzy doesn't eat the Vet's food, she's got to eat something.  Hopefully if she catches a bird, you don't have birds around there with the bird flu or whatever it is that birds carry.  

How's she doing other than not liking that food.  Still seeming to feel better? 

Click to expand...

Well, I don't think she had any luck hunting because she came in and ate about half a bowl of the food. I left her in a room on her own overnight and she only used the litter box twice, normal amounts both times.

 She wouldn't eat her breakfast again though and she's not happy with me. Keeps giving me the old Tortie stink eye. I think I'm going to have to get her on a different kind of food, it's no good having her only eat a little bit when she gets really hungry.

I'm going to call the vet again tomorrow and ask if there is anything else she could try.

Will she at a piece of raw meat? Worth a try. If you (human) eat meat, really any kind of meat you eat will do, though I'd start with poultry (white meat) first if you have it.

Hi Ritz,

Thanks for the suggestion.

She wouldn't eat raw chicken but I cooked some for her and cut it up into little chunks and she ate quite a bit of it. I had to let the others all have a bit too, they were so jealous.

After that she sat on my lap for about half an hour and purred!

  Susy hardly ever does that, it was such a nice feeling.

The vet has ordered me some canned food that he thinks would be good for her. It's going to be a bit expensive, but he's going to say it's for his own use so I get a discount. Hope she likes it. 

Thanks for the update. Yes it's lovely when they sit on your lap
Hope the special food helps, continued vibes.