Bladder surgery recovery

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ghostuser

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Hans was diagnosed with calcium oxalate stones two days before X-mas. He had a non-invasive surgery done this past Wednesday. (The stones were the size of poppy seeds, and were able to be passed with a little help from the vet.)

You need to ask the vet for metacam. Hans was prescribed it not for pain, but for inflammation. It keeps the area from swelling, and will make urinating a lot easier for her. I'm really suprised your vet didn't prescibe some sort of anti-inflammitory.

The diet thing, from what I've been reading, is just plain tricky. The goal is to keep the stones from reforming - which means specially designed foods that are high in fiber, water content, and that are designed to keep the urine at a "medium" pH. However, these foods aren't the greatest out there, and for the health of the cat it should go back on "normal" food in a few months. But the normal foods are the ones that caused the problem in the first place. It really is something where you need to sit your vet down and make him answer your questions. (Mine tends to dance around any question that deals with food. I'm planning on tackiling him tomorrow and making him give me a clear answer.)
 
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kittykaren

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I am going to call the vet in a few hours when they open the office. It's going on 5 days now and aside fromt he fact that the stones have been removed, her symptoms are no better than before. And I need to sleep. She is awake for hours going to the litter box and my other cat is getting agitated and he goes after her and I can't sleep because I have to be sure she doesn't get hurt. My house is very small and hard to keep them separate. But if her discomfort and pain were to go away, she may just sleep and the house could calm down. I can't see how this stress can help her heal. And I'm getting real tired of only sleeping 2 hours a night. Thank you all for your advice. I am counting the hours to make that phone call.
 
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kittykaren

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Well, I called the vet's office and he isn't in yet. I left a message for him regarding Misty's many trips to the litter box and she also still has blood in her urine and this is day #5. I'm waiting for him to call me back.

But in the meantime I wanted to share a couple of photos of my Misty. Yes, I suppose I'm a proud mommy. I will let you all know what my vet says.

The first picture is Misty a couple of weeks prior to surgery. The second picture is my pampered baby resting comfortably the day after surgery.
 

zanniesmom

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Pretty kitty. The Metacam is a good idea. Be sure that if it is prescribed to use exactly the dose ordered. It is in drops so I put the drop onto baby food to give him and it worked fine. But it would be easy to give another drop by accident if you dropped it into their mouth. It works well for pain and inflammation. The problem might be continuing because she really needs to get onto the prescription diet. Becky
 
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kittykaren

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My vet asked me to bring in a urine sample to check to see if there's still an infection or if it's just inflammation. So I brought it in and now I have to wait to hear from him. I just don't understand what the production is all about. She had surgery because the stones were tearing up her bladder. What would be the big deal to give an anti-inflammatory no matter what. And then if there's still an infection, just give her something for that as well. I just don't understand the resistence. As for the diet, I'm going to start adding the X/D canned to the canned food she eats now and try to get her switched over soon. However, the diet may change again once the results from the lab come back as to what type of stones she actually had in there....Karen
 

pat

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Originally Posted by KittyKaren

My vet asked me to bring in a urine sample to check to see if there's still an infection or if it's just inflammation.
I'm surprised they didn't ask you to bring her in for a cystocentesis...it's the most accurate method for getting an uncontaminated urine sample...a simple voided isn't accurate....he already knows you said there is blood in the urine, how can he trust any presence of wbc's on a simple voided?


All Tyler's u/a tests are done using cystocentesis as the method...my vets and my preference.
 

zanniesmom

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I was wondering that too, but then I thought that maybe with the recent surgery that it might be difficult? But still, a home collected specimen isn't much good. If a cystycentesis isn't possible, the vet should keep kitty with an empty litter pan or the special litter that doesn't absorb, and get the specimen as fresh as possible. Becky
 
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kittykaren

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The urine sample I brought him was from an empty litter pan. He said he didn't want me to bring her in just yet because he didn't want to stress her further. So I told him that if he would give her an anti-inflammatory and she could get rid of the inflammation and the pain, then perhaps she would not be stressed by now. I don't understand what the urine and whether there's bacteria in it or not has to do with the anti-inflammatory. I mean, we already KNOW there's inflammation. There has been since August with the stones being in there and one infection after another. And then the surgery. It's pretty obvious to me that even if there is an infection, that there's also inflammation. What's wrong with treating both? We're going to have a chat when he calls me with the urine results and he's going to be made aware just how annoyed I am becoming with this.


I do have to say that Misty has not made a trip to the litter box for almost 3 hours now and was throwing a toy around the house a little bit ago. So maybe that's a good sign. Maybe she is finally improving. But I still want something for her discomfort because she can be doing so much better.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Karen
 

eddie's mom

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My Eddie had stones removed before Christmas and it took him a good week and a half to be "normal" again. He was sent home with anti-inflamitory/pain meds and I personally think that it made all the difference in the world and helped him heal faster. I would demand that your vet listen to you and give your poor kitty something for relief.
 
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kittykaren

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Well, the urine shows there's still an infection which doesn't surprise me since she had one prior to surgery and was on so many antibiotics over the past 6 months that they stopped working. Prior to and after surgery, Misty was on Clindamycin which seems to have done nothing for the infection. The gave her Zeniquin now. I have never heard of that one. She used to do very well on Baytril until she was on it too much and it stopped working. She's allergic to Clavamox and Amoxy. He said Zeniquin is good like Baytril. I hope so. I asked him for metacam and he gave it to me. So hopefully Misty should start feeling better soon. I hope so. Thank you ALL so much for your advice and support. I had never heard of metacam until you all mentioned it so I'm very grateful.
 
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I just though of this - he may have held off on giving you an anti-inflammitory because from I've read, it can be iffy to use them on cats. There have allegidly been reports of metacam causing renal failure in healthy cats. Whether or not this is a rumour, I really don't know. I do know that metacam has not been approved for use in cats yet, and may not be, but vets can still prescribe it for cats. So you vet may have wanted to play it on the safe side, just in case.

As for admistering it, they should have given you premeasured syringes. Hans LOVES the stuff. He's taken to chewing the syring to get at the medicine, so it's been really easy adminstering it.
You might want to see if she'll take it without a fight, first.
 
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kittykaren

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Yes, he gave me prefilled syringes. He gave me three. He said he really doesn't like using it and told me first give her the antibiotic which I did at noon and he said to see how she feels later before giving her anything else. Misty has a sensitive tummy when it comes to antibiotics and he wants to make sure she isn't going to be vomiting before giving her the metacam. He also said that if I decide not to give it to her later that I can bring her to him and he will give her an injection of Torbugesic, which is what he gave her after her surgery and it seemed to work for her for the day of surgery and the after when she came home. She started having trouble on the third day when it wore off. So I don't know. I'm wondering if I should just take her in for the injection. The vet is only one mile from my house so it's really not a big trip. Or I can ask him to come to the house since he makes house calls to care for farm animals in the area. So maybe he'll stop here and just inject her if I ask him. Does anyone know if metacam is harsh on the stomach?
 

pat

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If you do end up using something other than the metacam, why not just use torbegesic in Val syrup?
 
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kittykaren

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I could try that as long as her stomach doesn't react. So far she's been OK though since I gave her the Zeniquin. Her stomach seems fine. And that was 4 hours ago. So I might just give the metacam a try. She's been sleeping all afternoon. Strange though since before I had the medicine she was up constantly running to the litter box. But even if she is starting to feel a little bit better, I'm going to give her the medication for pain anyway. She earned it. And it will probably make the remainder of her recovery much easier.
 
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Hans has a really sensitive stomach too, and he hasn't had a problem with metacam. I doubt it would bother her too much.
 

redsmom79

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Originally Posted by KittyKaren

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
My cat had the same surgery on the same day. He seems to be better as far as the bladder is concerned, but we have run into another problem (more about that later-I'll post about swollen paw). The vet gave him meloxicam, which is a pain reliever/anti-inflammitory. I think it probably depends on how long/how severe the problem was in the first place. My cat apparently had stones for a few months, but never gave any indication (that I picked up on) until I saw blood leaking out of him. Turns out his bladder was so full it was overflowing.
 
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kittykaren

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Sorry to hear your kitty had to have surgery too. I think you're right about it depending how long the stones are in the bladder. My Misty's problem starting with recurring Urinary Tract Infections back in July. I have no idea how long the stones were in there. She only was x-rayed in November and the stones were there. So there's no telling how long. But Misty had a lot of bacteria, blood and a high white blood cell count since October. We tried so many antibiotics and nothing would kill the infection. According to the vet, it's because the stones were there and that if we got the stones out, the infection could clear up. Well as of today, she still has an infection. But I have to say, she is feeling better tonight since I gave her the medications. She has been sleeping for about 4 hours now. Really, sound asleep. She must be catching up from all the lost sleep. Maybe now she will heal.

A swollen paw? I hope he gets better from that real soon so he can enjoy the relief from having the stones removed.

Karen
 

pat

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Originally Posted by KittyKaren

But I have to say, she is feeling better tonight since I gave her the medications. She has been sleeping for about 4 hours now. Really, sound asleep. She must be catching up from all the lost sleep. Maybe now she will heal.
Karen
 
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