Help Cat still sick with UTI after 2nd stronger antibiotic.

Ricky my 8 year male persian mix has been suffering from a UTI for the past month. He's been to the vet twice and is on his second round of stronger antibiotics but it doesn't seem to be helping. I wanted to know if anyone could offer any words of wisdom. All the vet seems to what to do is more urine analysis....he's already had 3. The poor little guy is in his litterbox almost all day and can't manage to pee more then a few tiny drops at a time. He's pee outside of more frequently too. Plus he just looks miserable.

He sounds like he is miserable. I would take him to a feline specialist or a vet school near you for another evaluation.

I feel terrible for you and Ricky! UT's are very serious in male cats because their urinary tract is so much narrower than a female's. I just took my female "babie kitty" to the vet today for the very same thing. She was strayed for a long time before I got her, so i think her problem is ultimately a immune system problem. Repeated antibiotics can weaken the immune system. I'm going online for holistic treatment options for her. It's something you might want to do. Altho, the fact that Ricky is voiding so little, sounds very dangerous to me. It sounds like he's very plugged up. Is there anywhere else you can take him? I live in a very rural area, so we are very limited with vet care. If you have any other options, I would take them.

Poor Ricky. The trouble with a chronic UTI like this is it could easily develop into a life threatening situation if he becomes completely blocked.
Did your vet say this was caused by crystals?
Diet is the key to clearing the urine of crystals, and anitbiotics should take care of any infection. It's really important for Ricky to be on a diet very low in minerals for a while.
He also needs to drink lots of water (we give our cats distilled water). Mix more water into his food to get him to consume more liquid. Also if he could be on wet food only, this will help him to clear up.

Has he had a bladder xray to look for stones?

Yes I've been mixing water in his food and feeding him mainly canned food but this doesn't seem to be helping.

He was xrayed on his first visit to the vet and they didn't find any stones or anything to lead them to believe this was anything but a UTI....a friend of mine from work though found out her cat had diabetes from a UTI case. I don't know enough about it to even hazard a guess.

I didn't think of trying a vet school but I'll do some research and see if there's one around that can help.

Ricky doesn't even seem to be urinating at all now so I'm getting really worried. I'm going to check him out in the morning and see if he's any better if not I'm going to call the vet and see if there's something I could do to help relieve him. It's frustrating because he seemed to get better for few days then all of a sudden within the space of a few hours he got really bad and hasn't improved much since then except for the fact that he isn't bleeding anymore like he was when I took him to the vet.

One good thing he isn't acting like he's in a lot of pain when I come home he rolls around on the floor and acts like he want to be petted which is a good sign.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions and ideas.

Are they finding bacteria in his urine? If not, he could have interstitial cystitis which is a bladder inflammation that is not caused by infection. It is usually treated with painkillers. Antibiotics are not effective if this is the problem because there is no infection.

If he is straining in the litterbox and not producing any urine at all, he must go to the emergency vet hospital immediately. It is possible that he could be blocked and this is a medical emergency (though easily treatable).

I'm so sorry! Poor Ricky, but you sound like a great mom!
My ears always pick up when I hear of lagging and nagging infections, because we went through thid with our Freddie. Not to alarm you, but it might be a symptom of an underlying, more serious issue. If you can afford it, please have a CBC (complete blood count or complete blood panel) done as soon as you can. Have them do a white blood cell count to determine where in his blood an infection is present and run other tests. I'm sure it's jsut a bad UTI, but have you had him tested for FIV?

My Polly probably (we don't know for sure) has cysitis. One thing that my vet mentioned is that if Polly had an anatomic abnormality of some sort in her bladder, like a pocket that's not supposed to be there, then it could collect bacteria. Polly's urine was sterile, so that's not the case for her, but it made me think that maybe Ricky could have something like that and that could be why the antibiotic can't clear the infection.