Cystitis/stress in a 3 cat household and feli products

Hi all, it's been. A while since I posted - we have 3 cats, 2 9 month old kittens and the mum. Everything has been fine since we neutered them, Bella (kitten no 2) got a little timid after Xmas but is loads friendlier now and I am hoping I'll eventually be able to pick her up again. About 8 weeks ago she got cystitis and it still hasn't cleared, the vet says its stress related even though they appear to get on so we've made a bunch of changes to try and aleiviate anything.

I have two feliway pluged in and have been recommended the new felifriends plugin - does anyone know if they fit in the same diffuser or do I need to buy the full kit?

We move to a bigger house in 2 months so I'm hoping that will also help as currently we have to keep them in a the living room whilst we're out. We've done the following but if anyone can recommend anything else it's much appreciated.

- extra litter tray
- two locations for food
- extra water bowl
- created loads of hidy holes
- they have heaps of toys etc to keep them all amused
- 2 feliway in the house

Thanks in advance

The very first thing you should do if you have a cat with any kind of cystitis is to feed a diet consisting of wet food only.  It should be high meat (not vegetable) protein, moderate fat, and very low carbohydrate.  That means it should not be loaded with corn, wheat gluten, sweet potato, potato starch, carrots and peas.  It doesn't have to be fancy or expensive, any standard pate Friskies, Fancy Feast or Sheba is all right, and Tractor Supply makes a very good line of grain-free wet foods at 69 cents a can.  Stress is part of it, but the most important thing of all is diet.  Second, it seems odd that she became so skittish since Christmas that you can't pick her up anymore.  Did something happen at that time?  It can be a busy time with a lot of strangers around, and animals often get kind of lost in the shuffle.  See if you can figure out why she is still skittish.  This has been a long time (6 months) since Christmas, and that's a long time not to be handling her.  She might do well on a tranquilizer.  When I treated my rescue cat MJ for urinary problems, she was on a tranquilizer and pain medications for three weeks and that helped a lot and by then she was no longer having problems because her diet was changed and she was no longer peeing blood.  Pain causes stress, so it's important to treat the pain.  Otherwise you get into a vicious cycle.  I will send you some links via private message of things you may find very helpful to read.  I'm going out for the evening but will check back tomorrow. 

Thanks, I hadn't thought about diet at all. They are on a high qualifty biscuit for grazing (plus now a Royal Canin "Calm" one) and wet food the rest of the time, we did have them on a higher quality wet food but with 3 cats it gets expensive. Perhaps I'll try switching just Bella on to it and see if I can get away with it

I guess you can't really put a price on their health so we'll see how we go - buying bulk does help!

Regarding Christmas we were away for 3 days, it wasnt the first time they were left and we had a pet sitting company we know very well come in and feed them etc. They were also neutored just after christmas, so not sure if its related to that. She is miles better now, she just doesnt like being picked up (the claws come out), I can do it, but she'll struggle. Other than that she's really friendly with us, she'll come over for fusses and doesn't run away from us anymore! What ever up set her I think we've rebuilt the trust, she just hates being held for some reason. The other two are really dosile and we do our best to treat them all the same.

Thanks for your PM, I'll give it a good read and visit the website later!