He's on a peein' spree!

Hi, I am looking for advice.  I have a cat, the Rawhide Kid, who is quite ill.  He has been peeing blood on and off for the last month and a half.  I noticed the problem on September 21th, after I'd returned from a 2 week long trip, and got him to the vets on the 22st.  They couldn't get a urinalysis because he was tapped out so they gave him a shot of Convenia and sent us on our way.  Within a day his symptoms cleared up and he was fine for the next few days. I switched him to a canned food diet for good measure. But soon he started to pee blood again. Took him back to a different vet on Oct 1st and they told me it was stress and he would get over it in a few days. After that visit he cleared up for a few days. I got some feliway spray and a special collar for him. Then he started up again on Oct 10th.  Took him back to the vets and they ran a urinalysis.  PH was perfect. No crystals in the urine. But they gave me two weeks of Orbax.  And he got better. Until the 29th.  Blood pee again!  Called the vet and they gave me a refill of the Orbax on the 30th.  And he was fine for about 9 days.  Now he is back to filling my bathtub with blood and squatting all over the house.  It's been on and off for weeks and he is miserable.  I am out of money and out of ideas.  I have changed his diet, de-stressed the house as best I can (and he is not the neurotic quaking cat you would expect of one with Cystitis.  He is a badbutt.  The instigator in all household brawls between him and the girl cat.)  I am not sure what to do next.  He is in pain over and over and over and there is nothing I can do.  The annoying thing is that it seems to clear up whenever he is on an antibiotic but as soon as the medicine is gone, he is sick again.  And the vets keep telling me it is all stress.  I don't buy it.  He needs an x-ray, I think.  Do you think he could have like a kidney stone or something?  I have no idea what is going on here.

Thanks for listening if anything.  This has been very frustrating.  

I don't think it will go away either.  We have been to three vets actually and two have said it is stress and to give it time.  But it is fairly obvious to me that there is a bigger issue here.  Cystitis comes and goes but not with this frequency.  He goes to the bathroom mostly in the bathtub but he also tries to go around my bedroom.  Mostly when I am around. Like he is saying, "Look at me!"  He wants help but everyone keeps telling me to wait. 

A very similar thing is happening with my old girl right now, except there is no blood in her urine.  The first time it happened she got a Convenia shot and was sent home and everything seemed fine.  Then it happened again about 3 weeks later (the urinating outside the box), so we took her in again.  This time they upped the dosage of Convenia AND gave her a small amount of steroid via injection to reduce any inflammation in her bladder.  The Vet said the only way to know if she has stones is to do an xray, but we would try the above action first, then return in 3 weeks for another round just to make sure we "get it", and then see what happens.   There is obviously not a blockage, and with your guy it's obvious there isn't one either, since you are seeing urine.  As for our girl, she has not had any more pees outside the box since we brought her home from the Vet the last time, and that will be one week tomorrow. 

WHY do they think it's stress related?  Is something different around your house?  

Are any of the Vets you've seen Cat ONLY Vets?   I really find it hard to believe that he's not getting better help.  You said TWO of the Vets said it's stress related.  What did the third Vet say?

This happened to my cat two weeks ago. One night he started peeing all over the house, had never done that once since we rescued him a year ago. We ended up taking him to the Vet ER that night (huge waste of money), they told us he was stressed and to add another litter box to the house. Ugh.

The next day he was still in pain and not able to urinate at all. He was blocked. You don't want to get to that point because then they have to "unplug" him and that costs some real money, which we paid. The doctor put him under anesthesia and manually worked all the urine out that was blocked, or something (don't know the details). He gave us some antibiotics (worth it) and some prescription cat food (not worth it, skip it) and sent us on our way.

We also added some apple cider vinegar into the mix (1 to 10 ratio in a liquid non-needle syringe) and that seemed to help IMMENSELY.

If I were you I would just start with the apple cider vinegar and if it doesn't get any better, take him straight back to the vet.

Hope your kitty starts feeling better!  

I tend to panic when he starts peeing like that and call whatever vet will answer the phone and get me in the soonest, which is why I have gone to three. The third vet was the first one and they were the ones who gave him the convenia. We do have a cats only clinic in our area so mayne i should try that. He is still peeing in the tub as of today so I know he isnt blocked, but there isnt any blood so thats good.

My cat has had issues with peeing blood in the past too. He has been blocked several years ago. It is often caused by stress. When he pees blood, but isn't blocked, they diagnose it as cystitis. My vet told me that it cystitis in general is usually sterile, meaning no infection, so antibiotic will not help. But there has been some evidence that antibiotics help reduce inflammation, so that's why some vets give it. Mine does not give antibiotics for it. What really helps is an anti-spasm medicine to help relieve the stress on the bladder. This helps the bladder to fully evacuate each time and reduce the swelling. Also, they always give pain medicine because this is very painful for cats & they are really good at hiding pain. An x ray helps to see if there are bladder stones. It may or may not help to see if there are crystals because they're so fine, but mine had so much that you could see! 

Like others have said, although its costly to keep going to other vets, it is even more costly to go to an emergency vet to get a cat unblocked. When a cat is totally blocked & absolutely nothing is coming out, its life threatening & has to be treated immediately. It cost $1000 each time for us, and it happened twice. You don't want that!!!