Zeus began to pee blood, the vet local does not have the catheter needed to test him.

Hey everyone, been busy here, and unable to look at any new posts as we have been very busy with our own kids. We lost another kitten this week, part of a rescue litter with the mother we picked up a few months back. Her litter has been plagued with problems, and o ly one kitten is left (out of 3), we hope this last kitty has better fortune and not so many congenital issues, although her tail is absolutely the most bent tail we have ever seen.

Anyway, last night, one of our other cats had blood in his urine, and as you can imagine, we became very alarmed. He is less than a year old, Himalayan male, and the vet suspects FLUTD, which is new to us. The vet did not have the proper equipment to get a sample of urine straight from Zeus 's bladder, but he suspects this is the cause. We are contacting another hospital to see if they have what is needed to run the correct test.

We have over 30 cat rescues, and it seems we can't go a month without one of our babies needing to be hospitalized. We have been unable to find homes for any of the cats, in the Philippines, they treat cats like rodents with character. They are mostly shallow, and want pure breed cats only, and they want them free. Getting cat care in the Philippines, is difficult on the best days. Anyway, I was hoping someone with more knowledge can enlighten us about FLUTD, what the prognosis is, and what the typical routine of treatment is for this disorder.

Thanks in advance, sincerely, the kittykeepers.

Here is my Zeus

All the vet needs is a sterile syringe and a needle, so i'm confused as to why he doesn't have the proper equipment.  But it would be fairly normal, especially if he doesn't have a syringe to just start treating the suspected case with the proper antibiotic like clavamox and see if your cat responds.  That's what i'd do.

Agreed, you would think he would just go directly into the bladder using a needle, but for some reason that was not an option. He explained to my wife in cebuano, which I don't understand. We have him scheduled to be admitted tomorrow morning, just to be safe, and hopefully they have everything needed at this location as it is a teaching hospital.

Here in the Philippines, cats are neglected to say the least, most vets have no real experience treating them either. They buy their supplies based on dogs, so when a cat needs care, they often refer you elsewhere, or they have to order special equipment for cats on an as needed basis. Sucks, but that is life in a third world country. It sucks to be a human going to the hospital here in the Philippines, I pity any animals that must go that much more.

*URGENT URGENT URGENT*

I just received an email from the vet, they sent me a digital x-ray of our Zeus, I am pretty sure I can see his bladder just fine, and it looks clean, but I am certainly no vet, or even an x-ray technician. If there are any vets online that can assist, I would be extremely grateful, our vet won't give us any information until Monday at the earliest. We brought Zeus home (kind of surprised they did not admit him), and we are already giving him UT diet food, and trying to monitor his water intake, which has been high the last few days.

The suspect he has bladder stones, but again, I don't see anything on the film. Here is the picture they sent to me, I will upload the largest version possible, again, any one able to read this would be a huge help. Please talk to your circles and let everyone see this picture possible. Sincerely, the kittykeepers.

I can't help with the x-ray, but I sympathise - I grew up partly in Manila, and we ended up taking in 14 cats over the years we were there. Including one Tonkinese who was given to us free, as you say! The others were mostly found as kittens. Luckily while we were around we had a great American vet there concurrently who was experienced with cats and well equipped...

Anyway, Zeus is a gorgeous boy, fingers crossed for him it's just something simple to be cleared up with some antibiotics!

Bumping this thread hoping someone can help. I don't have experience reading xrays but hoping someone can chime in! I would start feeding wet instead of dry food.

 I am a human doctor,   not a vet, and everything that I advise should be checked with a veterinary.     FLUTD is Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease and covers the whole gamut of feline diagnosis of lower urinary tract disease from infection to stone.  In the absence of any pathology, Norfloxacine antibiotic, as a blind treatment, would be the best for humans, but I do not know feline dosage nor interactions.    However blood in the urine suggests stone or gravel although patients, human or feline, with urinary tract infections may also pass blood. 

Apart from taking a specimen with an ordinary hypodermic syringe and needle, the cat should have a blood count, a biochemical blood profile and an ultrasound of the bladder for stone.  The most useful pathological test would be a microscopic specimen and culture of the urine for micro-organisms with antibiotic sensitivity but, for some obscure reason, your vet is not taking the specimen!  Maybe he could not feel the full bladder.

The image of the bladder looks normal to me and I am unable to see any stone in this straight X-Ray, but then I would not expect to see small stones. Does the cat eat dry or moist food?

With best wishes,

Geoffrey

Member @juleska lives in the Phillipines. Maybe she'll see this and come by to provide some advice. Are you  near Maila? Juleska recommends this in an old thread to a newbie whose cat had an eye issue:

 
 I am an admin for PART. PM me.

Are you in Manila? Get Bash to Pendragon clinic in Quezon City IMMEDIATELY.

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Hello @Thekittykeepers. Where in the Philippines are you located?

Thank you so much, I hope this is something that we can tackle before permanent damage occurs. We have already started him on a soft UT diet while we wait for the results. I have come down with some form of food poisoning, and I am pretty well laid out today, I hope that I feel well enough to travel with him tomorrow. We only have a motorcycle, worse, a sports bike. So even in the best of circumstances, it is difficult to take our kids to the hospital. If I am feeling too bad tomorrow, I will put out a help alert with one of the local rescue organizations for a possible pick-up.

I was surprised the vet did not immediately recommend starting anti-biotics, just as a precaution until the rest of the tests are complete. Thanks again to everyone who has Zeus in their thoughts and prayers, anything helps. Sincerely, the kittykeepers.

Cebu City. Unfortunately nowhere near Manila, obviously. We are almost expecting that the vet will recommend surgery to correct, he is old enough, and large enough to handle the operation. I have heard this is common with the breed, and I wonder if it is a product of irresponsible breeding, or just blind luck. I will have to do some more digging online. Thanks for you thoughts and concerns, sincerely, the kittykeepers.

Thekittykeepers said:

Cebu City. Unfortunately nowhere near Manila, obviously. We are almost expecting that the vet will recommend surgery to correct, he is old enough, and large enough to handle the operation. I have heard this is common with the breed, and I wonder if it is a product of irresponsible breeding, or just blind luck. I will have to do some more digging online. Thanks for you thoughts and concerns, sincerely, the kittykeepers.

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I have a rescue contact in Cebu City. Let me reach out to them and see if they have a good vet who can assist you. How is Zeus holding up?

Thekittykeepers said:

Cebu City. Unfortunately nowhere near Manila, obviously. We are almost expecting that the vet will recommend surgery to correct, he is old enough, and large enough to handle the operation. I have heard this is common with the breed, and I wonder if it is a product of irresponsible breeding, or just blind luck. I will have to do some more digging online. Thanks for you thoughts and concerns, sincerely, the kittykeepers.

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Surgery???  Are you talking about PU surgery? See http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=1+2142&aid=3600

This is usually last resort when all attempts at clearing and stabilizing blockages fail, and certainly not for a UTI.  I have to admit being confused.  If we're talking about a UTI, its antibiotics, and end of story.  If its struvite crystals, then a special diet and time is usually the end of that story, but in severe cases surgery is indicated.  I just get the feeling that this is being way ramped up higher than it needs to be....  am i missing something?

Sorry for the confusion, yes, we have seen our share of UTI 's, but this is expected to be crystals or stones. The vet wants to do as of said, try diet and medication to reduce the stones, but he said that based on the symptoms, surgery may be necessary. I may have jumped the gun in my post, I am sick and not thinking clearly, sorry for the confusion.

We expect to hear from the vet tomorrow on the tests and x-ray results, wish Zeus luck.

He is a fighter, so he is okay, but we are very worried about him. We will get the first test results tomorrow, thanks for caring.

Update on our Zeus.

They have placed him on an IV drip, and we're finally able to get a sample of urine directly from his bladder today. They are awaiting the results of the blood/urine tests, hopefully we will know more tonight. They said that there was a significant amount of blood in the bladder, and the vet is concerned about the origin. If it is from the bladder, via stones, that is the best case, his fear is the blood is coming from the kidney which would indicate a more severe medical problems. The film is mostly clear, but both the kidney and bladder are showing up more clearly than they should, which he indicated was a sign of inflammation/distress.

If the results of the test come back inconclusive, he is recommending surgery to try and pinpoint the cause of the bleeding. This would be an exploratory surgery, much larger than male cats normally go through, and it is very scary for us.

With all the loss we have suffered since our beloved Gimpy passed away suddenly from acute kidney failure, we are emotionally exhausted. We don't want to lose any more cats, and we are baffled by the losses we have already suffered. Only since we began seriously rescuing cats/kittens, have we seen medical issues that we have never dealt with. All our cats are checked and given vaccines before integration into the home, and we feed them a grain free diet with only mineral water for drinking, so we are confused about the kidney problems, and maybe it is something environmental that we don't know about, or missed. We don't have plants in our home, so there is nothing in that category that could be causing issues.

One thing is certain though, most of our cats have some form of bent tail, and are likely products of inbreeding, which we stop by spay/neuter, but the idea of these cats have congenital defects tops our list of causes. If you have any ideas of what other environmental hazards that are commonly found in home, and can contribute to UT disorders, please feel free to give us a note, so we can create and even safer environment for our beautiful babies.

Something that I just the very second, thought of, and I can't believe I did not think of this sooner. Does anyone know of clumping cat litter causing stones if ingested? We use a local brand of litter, that is very effective in clumping, but it may be too effective. The powder forms almost like concrete, and is not dissolve very easy. The brand is "cat care" clumping cat litter. Probably only available in Asia, and probably not tested and reviewed like the major brands available in the US. Anyone living in Asia, especially the Philippines, if you have this litter and have had UT issues, please contact me as well. We need to find out if this is just a coincidence or a more prevalent problem that has gone undetected.

Sincerely, the kittykeepers.

I can certainly relate to what you are feeling. My husband and I live in Tarlac (about 3 hrs north of Manila) and we're involved with a rescue group. It's a very different experience being on the front lines taking in cats and kittens with serious medical conditions straight from the street than adopting from a shelter after they've been vetted and restored to full health (if they ever had health problems to begin with). The sheer scope of the animal population in the Philippines and the amount of communicable diseases and infections going around makes for a high mortality rate. Despite taking every precaution probably a third of all kittens we take in younger than 2 months never make it. (I understand Zeus is not a kitten, just relating.)

Now, as for Zeus:

My rescue friend in Cebu says you're already seeing the best vet in your area. He saw the name on the x-ray you posted, South Western University and Animal Wellness. So take some comfort in that. It sounds to me like they're taking the right precautions. Exploratory surgery can be scary but it may be imperative to determine the cause. If you had one cat pass from kidney failure I'm wondering if there's some link between that and what Zeus is going through now? Assuming your vet is familiar with Gimpy's illness also?

Regarding the litter, since you're in the Philippines I have an unusual suggestion. We volunteer with the Philippine Animal Rescue Team and learned that instead of traditional clumping litter, they started using sawdust for their litter boxes. We have a LOT of cats and the regular cat litter, which is fairly low quality by my standards, was just absurdly expensive given how fast we go through it. You can go to any carpenter shop in your town and ask to purchase a large quantity of  sawdust. We take a giant plastic tub over to our local shop and they fill it up for 500 pesos (about $10). Compare that to 1000 pesos ($21) we were spending for a single (small) bag of litter...it's a huge savings.

The sawdust is highly absorbent so it's very effective, and because it's biodegradable we can toss the entire litter box contents every day if we want. We have 25+ cats so we have a lot of litter boxes and need to change them frequently. We have not had any health concerns related to the litter box since we started doing this, and it is considerably cheaper. Given your concerns about the clumping, that they may be consuming some of the clay, you might try this. One tub of sawdust will keep all of our litter boxes filled for 2 weeks, and we toss it all at least every other day. As a matter of fact, we burn the contents. It's all biodegradable and that cuts down on flies or other pests forming around any discarded waste.

I know this is a scary time for you with Zeus. I really hope the vet is able to determine the cause and get him on an appropriate course of treatment. Sending you and Zeus lots of good kitty vibes!

So sorry you are going through this. I second the idea of changing the litter - clumping litter should never be used for kittens as it is very dangerous if eaten. Grown cats would not usually eat it. though.

There aren't a lot of options for litter in the Philippines unfortunately. Most places you can only buy one brand and it's always a low quality clumping version. We briefly switched to sand...bad bad bad idea, do NOT do that. Since we changed to sawdust we've had no issues with smell or bacteria.

That's all very good to know. I have also heard that chicken feed is a great way to cut costs regarding litter, we plan to try that next.

Something we learned today (as the novices we are), the Philippines has a problem with blood groups among cats. Apparently, in much of the US, most cats are A blood type, while in Australia they are B, and here in the Philippines, there is supposedly a mixture of both. That this mixture of A and B causes all kinds of problems, since you can't usually mix blood groups without there being consequences. Our vet said that if the mother is A, and the kitten is B, even her milk can cause a blood reaction since they are not the same. This is one extra layer of possible causes of the high mortality rate here in the Philippines, especially the unexplained deaths. He also informed me, to my shock and horror, that there is no place that to can determine blood group, so if your cat needs a transfusion, it's like russian roulette. Just wow.

As for the latest update on Zeus, we may be bringing him home tomorrow while the testing is being completed (doing the bacteria test, waiting for growth, can take a fee more days). He is fine in every regular test so far, blood count, WB normal, etc, there is just the blood that won't go away. It appears to be bad in the morning, but by night, there is no visible sign. When morning comes, it's very bloody again. (yet another mystery, why does it stop in the evening?)

He will inform us tomorrow of the next step, while includes for now, just a lot of vitamin support, and finally the exploratory surgery if the Labs come back clean. If his urine does have bacteria, he wants to hold off on surgery, until the infection is gone. This makes sense, since it would currently be confined to his bladder and opening it up while full of bacteria would expose all his internal organs to the infection, which would be very bad considering.

At the moment, our biggest worry is blood loss, if he gets to much bleeding, he won't be strong enough for surgery of any kind. And if he needs a transfusion, without a blood test, we don't know if there would be a reaction to any donor blood, so nightmare again.

Thanks for all you do, and for the advice about sawdust. We will price out the chicken feed, and look for a lumber yard (as if there is anything remotely close to what I am used to back home). If worse comes to worse, I am a real carpenter by trade, after being a soldier. I have plenty of power cutting tools to create a huge sack of sawdust with just a few cuts, so I may just make my own.

Just to put a smile on all your faces, mine as well, here is a picture of a young Zeus with his brother Hades and their adoptive mother Mystique. Enjoy, sincerely, the kittykeepers.



PS. Good to know about the sand, I almost bought some yesterday. Thanks for stopping me from wasting money. Also, there is no connection between our Gimpy and Zeus, Gimpy was an indoor/outdoor cat, never used a litter box, so that can't be it. She passed away before we got the two Himalayans.