Worried: Lower Urinary Tract Blockage

danitaielle

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My 4 year old male cat, Tintin, has been at the emergency vet for 12 hours now. I took him in this morning after observing some strange behavior (meowing, laying down in the bathtub and puking). They rushed him back and put him on a catheter, which is being left in until 2pm tomorrow. They ran blood work and the vet said something about his kidneys and a retest in the morning (I was being downloaded with so much information I didn't catch it all, I feel too needy calling back so late for clarification). It's 11:30PM now and I'm just sick with worry. I've never dealt with an emergency situation with my pets before and I'm just making myself worse reading other peoples experience. I just want my happy boy home. Had anyone had experience with this? How long was your cat at the vet? How long before they were back to normal?

Thank you for any information.
 
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margd

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Getting Tintin to the vet so quickly was definitely the right thing to do so he is right where he needs to be.  If he's at an emergency vet, they are probably 24 hours so it's not unreasonable for you to call for an update on him, so I'd go ahead.  Most vets will understand how worried you are.

I have never had a cat with this problem, knock on wood, but many of our members have.   You can search the site and find a lot of threads that discuss it - here are three to start.

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/252920/help-nervous-wreck-about-cats-urinary-blockage-recovery

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/307580/cat-with-urinary-blockage

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/298749/best-canned-food-for-cats-prone-to-urinary-blockage-crystals

Many of our members are in the US and it's 5:00AM on the east coast.    Once the day is well underway, hopefully you'll get more replies to your post.

I hope Tintin recovers quickly.  
  

BTW:  welcome to TCS!  
   
 
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danitaielle

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Thank you, I'm glad I found this resource. I was up far too late reading everything.

Morning update: Tintin's overnight vet just called saying that he did well over the evening. He's tolerating the catheter well and producing urine. I had her explain to me what they were looking for with the additional bloodwork, she let me know that he was showing irregular levels in the kidneys and wanted to make sure that they had returned to normal before they attempted the catheter removal. If everything goes smoothly today, he'll have that removed early this afternoon and hopefully he'll urinate for them. As soon as he can urinate on his own, I get to bring him home. I don't know if I can afford another night for him to stay, for my brain or my wallet.
 
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danitaielle

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Update part 2: The vet just called me again with the urine test results. He has struvite crystals and a rare bacteria (found in 1-2% of kitties) she's sending the bacteria out for a culture, I'll have results in 3-4 days.

She also told me with struvite crystals the best bet is to switch to an RX food. So I guess it's back to researching food for this gal!
 

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It sounds like you have a very good vet.  Not all of them actually culture the urine to identify the specific bacteria involved.  This way Tintin will get an antibiotic that should actually do the job instead of one that may or may not work.  

Here's another thread discussing the use of food other than the Rx food.  http://www.thecatsite.com/t/301527/...endations-for-prevention-of-struvite-crystals   From what I've read, the Rx food does do the job dissolving the crystals but it's expensive which is why so many people look for alternatives.

I hope Tintin gets to come home, too.   If he doesn't, check out the following article for some links to low/no cost vet care.
[article="32915"]No Money For Vet Care How To Find Help And Save Your Cats Life  [/article]
 
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danitaielle

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Update: Tintin's vet called to let me know his creatinine levels had gone from a 6.5 to a 2.8 (still .4 above normal high) and that he'd likely need to stay another night. I'm hopeful that I'll have my baby boy home in the early morning.
 

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Thanks for the update!  At least things are headed in the right direction.  Fingers crossed Tintin keeps feeling better and can come home tomorrow.  
    And please keep us informed of his progress.   After he comes home, you will probably have more questions and we'd like to help.
 
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danitaielle

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Thanks for continuing to check in on us. It helps me not feel alone through this.
 

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I'm so sorry to hear about poor Tintin!! My female cat suffered a bout with struvite crystals a little over a year ago. She was not fully blocked but the vet said there were so many crystals that it was like sludge [emoji]128561[/emoji]. It was an awful expirence all around. Really, really awful! Kitty was put on the Royal Canin Urinary SO canned only diet. I have to say that the food did its job but I was less than thrilled with the ingredients for long term and after a while my cat refused to eat it. Once we were out of the emergent phase and she was stabilized, I talked at length with my vet about other options (in this case a high protein canned diet of a novel protien). After getting off the prescription diet, Kitty did have to have a follow up urinalysis to make sure that crystals were not forming after the switch. Thus far, she has zero crystals and has not had a recurrence (knock on wood). Definitely get your boy stabilized however your vet recommends and then investigate transitioning to a different diet.
My girl bounced back amazingly quick once treatment started...I hope that is the case for your little guy [emoji]128571[/emoji]
 

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With the proper diet of all wet food, very low carb (below 10%) and paying attention to urine pH, crystals will not form again.  The healthy pH for cat urine is 6.0 to 6.5 and many  of the high carb diets metabolize towards the alkaline side (neutral is 7.0).  Having slightly acidic urine keeps struvite crystals from forming.  It is easy to get pH strips online (eBay, very cheap) and check once a day, more if it creeps up.  There are ways to get it back towards acid quickly if it starts creeping up.  That's better than repeat urinalyses to see if he is forming crystals!
 
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danitaielle

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I'll have to check out the PH strips. One of the women I work with said she bought crystals that you can put on their litter that show ph levels as well.

I feel like a bad mom, I've always fed him dry food, the Simply Nourish brand. And my cats get to share a wet food can a day. This experience has certainly changed the way I look at kibble! Do you have any suggestions of wet food diets to put them on. The vet is sending me home with prescription food (Hills or RC) and I will use that as directed, but Ive seen the ingredients and don't necessarily want my cats on that indefinitely.
 

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You are NOT a bad mom....I felt the same way too after Kitty has her crystal issue. I was feeding her primarily a diet of "premium" dry food when she developed her crystals
And felt horrible that I had did that too her. But at the time I was only doing what I knew. After her crystal issue, I researched the heck out of feline urinary crystals and alternatives to the prescription diet once the emergent situation was stabalized.
You are being a good mom because you are taking good care of Tintin when he needs you to be doing so and loving him through this. You are starting to arm yourself with knowledge for a future action plan. None of us can know everything so be kind to yourself.
I have been feeding Kitty Nature's Variety Instinct limited ingredient canned...either duck or rabbit. She is nuts for both! For treats, I do the Nature's Variety raw boost minis or pure bites freeze dried chicken or turkey. Those are really the only options I do for treats. I also invested in a water fountain to try to promote drinking more water as lots of water is a big component to minimizing crystals.
I also have a Feliway diffuser going at all times as it is thought that stress can be a contributing factor in crystal formation in cats that are susceptible to it.
I'm hoping Tinin is either home now or will be soon [emoji]128571[/emoji]
 

margd

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You are NOT a bad mom....I felt the same way too after Kitty has her crystal issue. I was feeding her primarily a diet of "premium" dry food when she developed her crystals
And felt horrible that I had did that too her. But at the time I was only doing what I knew. After her crystal issue, I researched the heck out of feline urinary crystals and alternatives to the prescription diet once the emergent situation was stabalized.
You are being a good mom because you are taking good care of Tintin when he needs you to be doing so and loving him through this. You are starting to arm yourself with knowledge for a future action plan. None of us can know everything so be kind to yourself.
I have been feeding Kitty Nature's Variety Instinct limited ingredient canned...either duck or rabbit. She is nuts for both! For treats, I do the Nature's Variety raw boost minis or pure bites freeze dried chicken or turkey. Those are really the only options I do for treats. I also invested in a water fountain to try to promote drinking more water as lots of water is a big component to minimizing crystals.
I also have a Feliway diffuser going at all times as it is thought that stress can be a contributing factor in crystal formation in cats that are susceptible to it.
I'm hoping Tinin is either home now or will be soon [emoji]128571[/emoji]


You are a great cat mom - you got Tintin to the vet and are researching his issues.  I didn't know about the dangers of dried food either, before my Chula had her UTI.  Fortunately she didn't have crystals or get blocked but I still felt awful because I felt I'd set her up for being sick.  It's been almost a year since her UTI and she's been eating canned food almost exclusively ever since.  She's fine and hopefully Tintin will be as well.  
 
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danitaielle

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Thank you so much. He's not home yet, hopefully tomorrow morning. I'm waiting for an update on his catheter removal.
 

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Good thinking. Most owners don't want to design their own diet, so the that's a simple way the vets can get the cats on something that will help them not form new crystals, but there is much better food available, for sure! I designed my own diet for the little FLUTD girl the vets had given up on.  I had to teach her to eat wet food since she had been on nothing but dry.  I lured her by mixing the EVO 95% chicken & turkey with some plain chicken baby food and then crushing some treats up in a bag with a hammer and sprinking that on top of the food.  Now she is used to it and waits for her food, turning up her nose and what I put down for the other cats.  I have also transitioned her to another grain-free, veggie-free and fruit-free canned food, and believe me, that is hard to find.  Since "grain-free" became the new standard, the manufacturers started adding all sorts of things to replace the grain fillers, like potatoes and peas and blueberries and the like.  Pea protein is NOT the same as animal protein, but they have done it to follow the trend while still making money on pet food.

I now use the Abound Turkey & Chicken which can only be found at the Kroger family of stores (in Oregon, that's Fred Meyer).  I used it when chewy.com ran out of the EVO and couldn't send me my monthly carton on time one month.  I also got some L-methionine which is an amino acid (the natural form) and those vet foods all include the chemically made version called DL-methionine, and it helps acidify the urine.  I spent maybe $10 on the bottle and it's only half gone in 6 months.  You just use a tiny bit, like we would put just a sprinkle of salt, in the food.  I designed this diet for her based on the recommendations from Dr. Lisa Pierson's web site. 

I think you would prefer the pH strips to color changing litter.  This way you can just touch it to them after, before they lick themselves dry, or dip it in any puddle they choose to make.  Mine was great at peeing in empty litter boxes and the bathtub when she was recovering, but she uses the boxes now.  She had been sick so long, and being female she did not block, she just peed blood every 15 minutes wherever she happened to be.    It was a tough three weeks but she is fine now and it has been 6 months.  It saved her life, because they were about to euthanize her because they couldn't make her well.  (She was in the humane society no kill shelter for 1 1/2 years and nobody would adopt her.  She had gotten grumpy from being in pain all the time and she would nip people who tried to pet her, poor girl.

Here is the link to Dr. Lisa's web site.  I'd be glad to send you the ingredient list of Evo 95% turkey & chicken and the ingredient list for the Abound Turkey & Chicken canned food if you like since I  have them on the computer. Everything I know about  FLUTD I either learned from that web site or from people on here who have gone through the same thing.   http://www.catinfo.org/

BTW a friend rescued a male cat who blocked, and the vet said the same thing, keep the pH between 6.0 and 6.5 and feed a low carb wet food diet  I gave her some strips, some L-methionine, and she started out with the Abound food (79 cents a can versus over $1.50 a can for the Evo.) and her cat has not had a recurrence either, and it has been 4 months for him.  When he first came home after the catheter, he was swollen in that area and could only pee in small amounts.  She kept following him around with the strips, testing whatever little drop was left on him, and she used Braggs organic apple cider vinegar diluted 4:1 with water when the pH would start rising towards 7.0 (neutral), 1 ml. every half hour until it would get back down.  (You can't give them a lot of the L-methonine or it can upset their stomach, but the vinegar does the trick of getting them back in slighty acidic mode when you have to rush it a little.)  After awhile, on that diet, they just stay between 6.0 abd 6.5, at least these two do.

Here is where I got my strips.  You can get two packages for $2.79, free shipping.  This seller is in Texas (many are outside the U.S. so take longer to get here.)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/80-Litmus-P...267860?hash=item235fb0a694:g:iWEAAOSwSHZWf1Oz

This is the kind of L-methionine I got, the pure crystalline form, the Source Natural in the 100 gram bottles on Amazon. 

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_n...rce+Naturals+L-Methionine&tag=&tag=thecatsite
 
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danitaielle

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Update: Tintin's catheter has been removed. The vet said that as long as he is passing urine he gets to come home tomorrow morning. Hoping for pee!!

Thank you all so much for the information. I'm compiling a list of foods to try once he's safely off of the RX food. I ordered a fountain and some PH strips as well. I never want him to go through this again, so I'm doing everything in my power (and wallet) to help him.
 

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Update: Tintin's catheter has been removed. The vet said that as long as he is passing urine he gets to come home tomorrow morning. Hoping for pee!!

Thank you all so much for the information. I'm compiling a list of foods to try once he's safely off of the RX food. I ordered a fountain and some PH strips as well. I never want him to go through this again, so I'm doing everything in my power (and wallet) to help him.
Great news!  Here's hoping Tintin produces!  
 
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danitaielle

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Final update for the evening. Tintin has peed!! The vet said that he is having spasms, and straining a bit. I'm hoping that's just from the uncomfortable catheter that had been in him for 36 hours. Hopefully I wake up to good news.
 
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danitaielle

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Update: Tintin just got cleared to come home!!! Picking up my baby now!!!
 
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