Bladder surgery recovery

I am new here. This is my first post. I have been reading many threads all morning and this place seems like such a wonderful group of pet owners and pet lovers.

I will try to make this brief but I was wondering if someone here could give me a little info.

I have a 7 year old female cat who had been dealing with bladder stones for months. We tried everything to get them to dissolve or to see if she would pass them but it just got worse and worse. So finally she had to have surgery (a cystotomy) to remove the stones. She just had the surgery this past Wednesday, January 12th.

My question is - does anyone know how long it takes to recover from this surgery and when her bladder will feel better so she will stop having to run to the litter box all the time only to make a little drop of urine? Any information from anyone who has been through this recovery process will be greatly appreciated. I love my kitty, Misty and I just want her to feel well again.

Thank you.

Karen

Did your vet send homw any anti-inflammatories home to control her pain? We often send home metacam to ease post op inflammation which greatly reduces the urge to pee.

No, he has her on Cephalexin only. I asked about pain medication and the vet told me that cats do well without it and that the urge to urinate will get better as her bladder heals. But he could not tell me how long that will take. One person said 3 to 5 days and another said 1 to 2 weeks. I just feel so bad that she has spent months with those stones in there and spending most of her time in the litter box and now she had surgery and still lives in that litter box. I would feel better if I would know how much longer she will feel this way.

I have no advice just wanted to see welcome to TCS and I hope your Misty will feel better soon

I think your vet needs to learn a little more about pain control! Cats feel pain the same way we do, they just don't complain as loud. I would call your vet and ask him for Metacam, or something like it. Be insistent! We dose out liquid metacam in small syringes. The cost should be no more than $30 for a 10ml bottle.

Thank you. I think I'm going to really enjoy this forum. My cats are my babies and most people I know just think I'm nuts for the way I worry over them. So it's nice to know I'm not alone.

Welcome!

Thank you. I will give him a call. I had a feeling that this was due to pain because she was fine the first day when she came home, but I think that was due to the fact that she had a shot of Torbugesic post op which I think was for pain. Once that wore off by day 2, she started with the frequent trips to the litter box again. Thank you so much for your advice. I will give the vet a call.

Originally Posted by Dr. Doolittle

I think your vet needs to learn a little more about pain control! Cats feel pain the same way we do, they just don't complain as loud. I would call your vet and ask him for Metacam, or something like it. Be insistent! We dose out liquid metacam in small syringes. The cost should be no more than $30 for a 10ml bottle.

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I couldn't agree more.

If your current vet won't listen, find a better vet. There is no excuse for undue suffering, especially with something so simple as this.

Spotz

Does anyone know how long this recovery takes?

It will greatly depend on the cat, and the extent of the surgery.

Pain will not help her heal any faster. But I would say that she should be acting pretty normal after 3-5 days, and would be close to if not completely healed within 2 weeks.

Spotz

Welcome to TCS. I sure hope your kitty has a quick recovery!

Besides getting some pain medicine for her, you should make sure she is getting lots of fluids so that her urine is diluted and won't be as irritating to her bladder. And so that more stones don't form. She should be on canned food and you can even mix water in with it. Make sure her water bowl is refreshed at least daily. Poor kitty, she should feel better soon. What type of stones did she have? Becky

Thanks Becky and thank you all for your kindness and advice. Misty's stones were sent out to be analyzed but we believe they are calcium oxalate.

Her ordeal was a bit odd I think. She had recurring Urinary Tract Infections starting in July. They would clear up with antibiotics and then a couple of weeks later come back again. Finally in October, a urinalysis showed that she had blood in her urine, a high white blood count and Struvite crystals and her ph was at 8.1 so Misty was put on Hills S/D dry food in addition to that I was given pills to add to her canned food to acidify her urine. After 4 weeks, there was no improvement and we did another urinalysis. This time there were Calcium Oxalate Crystals and her ph was down 5.0. Then she was put on Hills X/D for Calcium Oxalate with the idea that perhaps Misty's urine was too acifidied now, creating the oxalate crystals. Another month passed and we did another urinalysis and Misty's urine continued to have a lot of blood and a high white blood cell count. We tried many antibiotics to try to get the white blood count down and the to clear up whatever infection was present. But nothing helped. Finally, the vet suggested an x-ray of the bladder and some blood work. The blood work came back absolutely normal but the x-ray showed 2 stones in Misty's bladder. She was scheduled for surgery and surgery was attempted on January 5th but she had a reaction to the pre-anesthesia medication and the vet woke her up without doing the surgery. She was then scheduled for one week later on January 12th and a different anesthesia was used. I have to tell you, I was a wreck that day. But the surgery was done and she's been home now since Thursday, the 13th. I love her so much and just want her to feel better and I was hoping by now the frequent urination would have cleared up. She does sleep for a few hours at a time and as long as she is sleeping, she is OK. But once she gets up, she is always in that litter box.

As for her food, she has the dry Hills X/D but she prefers canned food and won't eat the X/D canned. Her food of choice is Fancy Feast Chicken or Turkey. So that's what I've been feeding her and the vet said it should be OK while we are waiting for the results of the stones. I do add a little water to the canned food and she does drink water from her bowl. I wish she would drink more though. What I'm doing is feeding her very small portions with water but feeding her 4 times a day instead of 2 so that I can get water into her more often.

I'll just feel better when this is behind us. I seem to have an underlying fear that she will be urinating all the time forever and she will not be cured. I guess because it has gone on for so long. I just don't feel 100% sure that this is the end of the problem.

Thanks for listening.

Karen

With Misty's history of both struvite and oxalate stones it is very important for her to be on the prescription diet. According to Small Animal Clinical Nutrition your vet is correct in putting her on a diet to treat the oxalate stones because it is easier to treat the struvite crystals than the oxalate. I would mix just a tablespoon of the x/d well into her favorite food and then increase the x/d a tablespoon at a time every few days until she is switched over. I really am not a fan of Hill's prescription diets and if Misty was my kitty I would be researching it and why it is used and seeing if there was a premium food that was its equivalent, but until I was very sure I would not take chances on changing. And if I did decide to change her to another food, I would have frequent urinanalyses done to make sure no crystals were forming. Good Luck. Becky

Hi there,

My Tyler had this surgery done several months ago (and was sent home on torbegesic in val syrup and I was told to keep him medicated and comfortable!)...he really was doing better re his volume within the first week though he continued to have some urgency, even that was beginning to ease up, but then due to a complication that is very rare(a free floating blood clot), his volume decreased and he ended up hospitalized with a blockage.

One point my vet made, was that his stones had abraded the lining of his bladder...so it would take time for it to heal, and pain med was most definitely indicated!

He is now much, much, much better...still has an increased number of voids in a day, but with normal volume and no discomfort that I can detect (and no more blood).

Fwiw as I read the last couple of notes that I hadn't seen, Tyler's stones were calcium oxalate...he has been incredibly picky re foods, (we had thought he was early diabetic), and I was told to just give him wet food only, lower phos/protein if I could (he has some shifting kidney values)...so that is what we do. Anything remotely decent that I can get him to eat (He lost a lot of weight and is finally gaining again)is what I give him.

Oh thank you for saying that he is gaining weight. My Misty lost weight too and I am hoping she will gain it back. She's a tiny cat and at her healthiest was only 10 lbs but she is down to 7.8 lbs now and even though it's just a couple of pounds, the weight loss is noticeable. It's encouraging to hear from someone who has been through this already and has a positive outcome.

Gee...paralell universe here...Tyler at his heaviest ever, was 10#, he got done to 7# 6 oz. I feed him 4 times a day and he is picking up wt...he was up to 8# not long after his hospitalization, and feels to me like mid-8's (I am going by how much I can feel covering his ribs, he has more heft...I need to get an official re-weigh at the vets done.) I just would like to see him hit 9 # anything

If you like to cook for your cat, and you have some spare money to spend, and your vet is willing to work with them, this site will help you cook up a diet for Misty that will suit her needs. http://www.petdiets.com/
Becky