Cat With UTI Peeing Outside of Litter Box

I took my 6 year old cat to the vet this afternoon because he was peeing on a recliner in my den.  He was diagnosed with a UTI and given a Covenia injection.  The vet told me it takes up to 36 hours for the antibiotic to completely start working. The vet also did check to make sure there was no blockage involved. He will be going back to the vet in 2 weeks to make sure the infection is gone.  

Once the antibiotic is kicked in I am sure I am going to have to set-up a new litter box in a new location to break the association between the pain from the UTI and the litter box.  

I am planning to get a new litter box and set it up in my bathroom upstairs. My other litter boxes are currently in my basement.   I am keeping him out of the den when we are not in there to watch him.

Does my plan sound good? Is there anything else anyone can think of that I should be doing?

This is my first time dealing with a UTI issue.  So I could use any advice anyone may have.

Are you feeding him canned or raw food?  Hydration is an important part of treating and preventing UTIs so it's best to limit the amount of kibble they get.  You might even get him a fountain to encourage drinking more water.  You can also add a little water to canned food as another way to ensure he gets enough water.

Setting up a new litter box is a good idea although not always necessary.  Chula went back to using her box once she felt better.  In general, though, it's a good idea to have a litter box on every floor anyway so putting one upstairs should work out well.

The problem I had with Chula and her UTI was that it wouldn't go away.  In the end, it took about two months and three different antibiotics before we finally got rid of it.  Her vet gave her a shot and a prescription for a 7 - 10 day course of oral antibiotics.   Some vets also give anti-spasmodics and pain meds but Chula's vet went with the antibiotic and a change of diet to wet food.   

Did your vet check for crystals in the urine? 

Hope your little guy feels better soon!  

Don't be surprised if your cat gets very tired and lethargic and maybe loses his appetite, because that happens often with that particular antibiotic.  Go up to the top of the page and type in "convenia" in the search bar and read some other peoples threads.  One important thing after a shot of Convenia is to start them on PROBIOTICS, because the Convenia kills their gut flora and then they cannot digest properly, and then there can be complications from THAT.  Prevention is the best way to go.

Red Top Rescue said:

 
Don't be surprised if your cat gets very tired and lethargic and maybe loses his appetite, because that happens often with that particular antibiotic.  Go up to the top of the page and type in "convenia" in the search bar and read some other peoples threads.  One important thing after a shot of Convenia is to start them on PROBIOTICS, because the Convenia kills their gut flora and then they cannot digest properly, and then there can be complications from THAT.  Prevention is the best way to go.

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Do the probiotics need to be specific to cats or can I use the same one used for humans?  Do I follow the dosage for humans or change it to a smaller dosage. Sonny weighs 18 pounds.  He is a big cat but is not fat per the vet.

Margd said:

 
Are you feeding him canned or raw food?  Hydration is an important part of treating and preventing UTIs so it's best to limit the amount of kibble they get.  You might even get him a fountain to encourage drinking more water.  You can also add a little water to canned food as another way to ensure he gets enough water.

Setting up a new litter box is a good idea although not always necessary.  Chula went back to using her box once she felt better.  In general, though, it's a good idea to have a litter box on every floor anyway so putting one upstairs should work out well.

The problem I had with Chula and her UTI was that it wouldn't go away.  In the end, it took about two months and three different antibiotics before we finally got rid of it.  Her vet gave her a shot and a prescription for a 7 - 10 day course of oral antibiotics.   Some vets also give anti-spasmodics and pain meds but Chula's vet went with the antibiotic and a change of diet to wet food.   

Did your vet check for crystals in the urine? 

Hope your little guy feels better soon!  

Click to expand...

The vet did check for crystals and there was a very small concentration so she felt it could be related to the infection rather than a separate issues.  That will be re-checked too when he goes back for follow-up.  Sonny unfortunately does not like wet food and the only raw food he will eat is chicken but not enough to just feed the chicken. I already have a cat fountain.  He also enjoys drinking out of my rock fountain which does have a water filter and is cleaned regularly. I have also been leaving the sink on for him when I am using the bathroom because he likes that too.  He is actually pretty good about drinking water.  The vet does know which dry food he eats and she was fine with continuing to use it for now.  If the crystals are still present then we will discuss a food change.  We caught this UTI before he was displaying symptoms the vet was actually surprised I caught it so quickly since he was not exhibiting any other signs of a problem besides the sudden change in litter box habit.

Does anyone know if I can use human probiotics for my 18 lb pound.?  Do you have any recommendations?  What dosage do you recommend?  I can verify the dosage with the vet when I get home from work tomorrow if people think I should.  I am hoping to pick up probiotics tomorrow at work since I work in a drugstore.   He is just a big cat the vet is not concerned about his weight. 

Sorry for the slow reply I was in a training class tonight for work.

My vet said I could use yogurt for my cat. Just make sure it's plain, unsweetened, with live cultures. But I would double check with the vet.

I don't know about otc probiotics. Sorry. The yogurt seems to have helped my cat. I give him a pea sized dollop a few times a day.

Yogurt has some, but you really need a full spectrum one for cats.  I have used one from Petsmart, made by 21st Century, Pre & Probiotic Soft Chews.  Specifically for cats, it contains lactobacillus, bifidobacterium and enterococcus thermipholus fermentation products.  I also give them Stoneyfield organic whole milk plain yogurt.

My rescue who had the severe crystals had been given Convenia three times by two different vets.  I got her from a no kill shelter I volunteer with when they begged me to give her a chance.  They were about to put her to sleep because they couldn't fix her problems and she was miserable and mean and unadoptable.  I got her medical records and saw the three doses of Convenia, one after the other, so I kept her on the pre & probiotics for a long time (something else I learned on here).  She wouldn't eat the soft chews at first so I dissolved them in goats milk and gave them to her with a syringe.  She also didn't even recognize wet food as food, so I had to transition her gradually.   I fed her Evo 95% chicken & turkey canned food and added just a pinch of L-methionine (amino acid, free form powder supplement) to it and then crushed up treats and sprinkled some crumbs on top of the food.  It wasn't long until she accepted it fully as wet food. 

She had been given nothing but dry food all her life and her urine pH was 7.5 when I got her and she was peeing blood every 15 minutes.  My own vet said I should try to keep her pH between 6.0 and 6.5 because struvite crystals cannot form in that slightly acidic environment.  (I bought pH strips online through eBay and it was easy to test since for the first three weeks she peed everywhere, mostly out of the box.   I put a puppy pad in a box and soon she was using that.  When she was healed, she started actually using the litter box most of the time.  She will always pee in the bath tub if I let her in the bathroom, so that makes testing easy.  I also gave her 0.2 ml of Bragg's organic apple cider vinegar "with the mother" mixed with 0.8 ml of water every day.  Now I only use that if her pH is creeping above 6.5, which is rare.  It has been six months with no recurrence, no vet visits, no medication, no blood in her urine, and she's not on expensive food anymore either.  She is now on Abound grain free turkey & chicken canned food (only available through Kroger family of stores) because Chewy.com ran out of the Evo when my case was due to be delivered, and I had to find something else quickly, and that was the ONLY food I could find that had no fruits or veggies or fish in it.  Now spending 79 cents a can instead of about $1.50 a can, and I add a little baby food chicken to it for flavor so she thinks it's Evo.  Evo was on the low phosphorus list, and Abound is very like Evo in its ingredients so I think it should be low phosphorus also.

I have two friends who had cats with FLUTD they rescued.  One cat did have stones and was catheterized and flushed by the vet.  He said the same thing about keeping the pH slightly acidic so I gave her a pack of my test strips and turned her on to the Abound canned food (her other cats eat Purina One dry food) and so far, so good with him also.  It has been about three months and no recurrence.  The other friend, in another state, said she couldnt afford "fancy food" but seems to be doing all right with the vinegar, the L-methionine, and Friskies pate canned foods with a little water added.  I learned everything that worked for this cat by reading this site, searching FLUTD and reading threads and then Private Messaging people who seemed to have had success, plus reading Dr. Lisa Pierson's web site (http://www.catinfo.org/ which is a must read gem) and using the food list to determine what type of food would be best.  The most important thing of all is diet, grain-free wet food with low carbohydrates and low phosphorus.

Just giving a quick update Sonny went back to the vet today for his follow-up visit. The UTI is completely gone and so was the small trace of crystals in his urine.  He has stopped going pee in my den and is back to using the litter box.  We have had the door open to the den for over a week now and there have been no more issues.

Great news!         Thank you for letting us know Sonny is doing so well.