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- May 27, 2021
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My main question is, How do I make my cat comfortable at home, in a cage, with a catheter? 
If you want to read the whole ordeal, it’s below. If not, I would greatly appreciate advice and help with making things ok for my cat in an uncomfortable situation. Thanks in advance!
My cat is about 1 year and 5 months months old. Since October 2019 he has had major FIC. This has been an insane journey with MANY different vets.
I know FIC is claimed to be caused by stress. I have tried investigated all areas of my cats life life a detective. We rescued my cat as a kitten and because of his rough start to life he does have separation anxiety and is fearful of new people ( especially men ) He loves my Mom, so when my husband and I travel to see my in-laws we have my Mom cat sit. We are never away for more than 8 hours.
My cat gets a lot of attention, has multiple cat trees, cat tunnels, interactive toys, scheduled play time, and a water fountain.
I will admit that when FIC Started I was not knowledgeable about FIC at all. My childhood cat became blocked when I was in high school, but I had no knowledge FIC. In October 2019 when I noticed that my cat was in an out of the litter box I took him to an emergency care clinic at 11:00 pm at night. A $300 visit told me that my cat was not blocked, he prob had FIC, and they gave me a 3 day anti biotic. The antibiotic seemed to work because he got better. I had no idea that this commonly happened, but that antibiotics barely do anything.
A week later, my cat is in an out of the litter again. This was on a Sunday, so yet again I have to take him to an emergency clinic. $400 later, they say he is not blocked and they did an ultrasound telling me bladder looks normal. They give me another antibiotic. This time a duration of 1 week. They recommend I get xrays, bloodwork, and urinalysis work done to rule out infection.
So I call my regular vet, and schedule to have this done. My regular vet was booked so I had to schedule it 3 weeks out.
I never made it to that appointment, because a week later my cat was in an out of the box again so I took him to emergency. I decided to get all the work done there. $800 later, his blood came back normal, his urine normal, xrays normal, no blockage. They recommended my cat start prescription food to prevent blockage. My cat was eating Blue Buffalo wet food, but he wouldn’t touch prescription wet food. So I put him on prescription dry. < ( big mistake)
Fast forward to January and my cat is having issues again. This time I managed to get an appointment with my regular vet who was willing to get the blood work and urinalysis faxed to them. Even though the other urinalysis showed no infection, it was done a month or so prior so they prescribed another round of antibiotics to be “safe.”($105 for this visit)
My cat had 2 days of the antibiotic left and I was almost out. ( Because of two failed attempts giving it to him, I waisted a decent amount) I called my vet asking them to fill it because a blizzard was coming and they refused because their policy is 24 hour notice. I knew how dangerous this is to not finish an antibiotic and I was very annoyed they were allowing their “policy” to interfere with an animals well being. I was very nice and explained I understood but there was a blizzard about to happen. They didn’t care. I called a different vet who I never went to, explained the situation, and they prescribed me the remaining antibiotic. I changed permanently to this vet.
The new vet said he wanted a urinalysis. I explained we already had it done but he wanted it again. So we got the urinalysis ($350 because cat had to stay all day to get fluids in him. (When he has cystitis he doesn’t drink so he needed fluids. Urine was normal. He said it was FIC and to make sure my cat was eating prescription food, and prescription wet food. He explained it would help with the FIC.
My cat wouldn’t touch the prescription wet food so I tried giving the usual blue buffalo with the prescription dry. My cats urine never showed an abnormal amount of crystals so I always assumed that blockage wasn’t going to be a problem. ( i was very wrong and misinformed) My cat now wanted nothing to do with blue Buffalo. So i made another HORRIBLE mistake and fed him fancy feast broth as a snack. I wanted to try it so I could mix a D-mannose supplement with it for urinary issues. I used the chicken broth because the D-mannose was chicken flavored. Eventually my cat didn’t like the chicken broth anymore, he only liked the fish. He wouldn’t eat the fancy feast fish broth with the chicken flavored D-mannose, so I stopped the D-mannose. Fish broth = Big mistake
From January to April,we had spent $1955 on the vet bills alone and my cat was still having cystitis episodes but I knew to not rush him to the vet at this point. I became a bit wiser and monitored him closely and if I saw pee was a decent amount I waited for it to subside.
I also gave him cantharis during cystitis episodes and it seemed to work.
Fast forward to April 21st, an I knew something was off. My cat was not on my bed meowing to be fed when I woke up. Instead, he was by his litter, and I could see he was in insane amounts of pain. My husband was still remote teaching at this time, so I was texting him while I was with the cat, pleading for him to come see the cat on his next break. He comes to us and I am cradling my furbaby telling my husband we needed to get him to the vet. Once my husband saw the cat could barely walk, he agreed. Cat gets to the vet, cat is blocked. Cat was unblocked and came home 3 days later. 1st day dripping blood everywhere. ( His urine had been bloody since 1st cystitis episode in October) We took him back for check up next day as the vet requested, and vet palpated his bladder, and said urine flow was good and to bring him back again Monday.
I could see that my cat was not peeing anything but a drop and expressed concern to my vet. Vet said it was normal because he just had catheter. The next day, I noticed my cat wasn’t even dripping, and would not eat again.
I drove him to the vet. Surprise surprise, blocked again. This time he was at the vet over night. The vet said he was peeing great, and he flushed him a couple times, and he could come home.
$3000 later, I had my cat home. I also found a prescription wet food he liked and switched him to that. I assumed the low quality fish of the fancy feast broths caused the blockage. My cats urine was no longer bloody as well.
Fast forward to end of May. I took my cat back to the vet concerned because his urine was not normal size. It seemed like it was always a dropplet, not a normal amount.
The vet palpated his bladder, said he had a good urine flow and wasn’t blocked, and recommended another urinalysis to rule out infection and to see what type of supplements he could recommend based on his urine make up.
At this point I’m feeling like he is trying to milk me for money because every urinalysis has showed no infection but I am very willing to comply He gives me special litter that wont absorb the urine so I can collect a sample.
Problem was, my cat wasn’t urinating more than droplets so I knew it would be hard to do.
2 week later, I notice my cat is having a cystitis episode again and is still not peeing normal , I call the vet and I talk to a vet tech.
I explain that It’s impossible to get a urine sample because my cat is only peeing drops in the litter box. I explain that he will randomly flinch his body and pee a drop or two on the floor. I suspect it’s mechanical and ask for the medication given to him before to help relax his urethra.
The vet tech tells me they don’t want to prescribe that because they suspect it could be an infection again and they don’t want him to get bad like before. I’m completely confused. “Infection? He had an infection before?,” I asked.
She says, “Yes, he did,” I am blown away because they didn’t tell me that when he was blocked. So I obey and take him to the vet. Oddly, my vet is not there. He left for the summer and it’s a new vet.
My vet was a pro at palpating the bladder. This vet couldn’t palpate the bladder and the vet tech told me he took out the urine with a needle.
I paid $280 for urinalysis and for 4 pills to relax his urethra. I thought great, they finally gave me what I asked for.
I get home that night and I start thinking about what had just happened. I realized they couldn’t palpate the bladder and get a urine flow from my cat. I say to my husband, the cat must be blocked.
My husband says, no they would of told you.
The next morning, my cat is very bad. He didn’t come up for food. He was laying in his litter box. My husband at this point is teaching at school; and my car is in the shop. I call the vet an explain how my cat is behaving.
The vet tech says, take him in right away! We couldn’t get urine out from him yesterday and were hoping the pills would help relax his urethra. I’m upset they didn’t TELL me this the day before. I panic and take an UBER with my cat to the vet. Leave the cat there and take an uber home.
I get home, and they call and tell me he is blocked and they need to know what to do NOW. I panic and let them know we have no money to spend, I have to get a hold of my husband who is teaching. We had just spent over $3000 with last blockage and another $280 for urinalysis to be sent to lab.
I call my husband, and my husband calls the vet and gets them to agree on unblocking the cat for $550 and sending him home with a catheter and cage for 2 days.
We paid another $70 to have them keep the cat overnight for 1st night, so that he is only home in cage with catheter for 1 night.
Turns out, this blockage was Mechanical!!! No obstruction, but mechanical.
Part of me wonders if my regular vet was there ( the one who was great at palpating the bladder) if my cat wouldn’t of had to be catheterized.
I’m also upset feeling so misguided and I feel like my husband and I are being drained for money with no care for my cat.
I know they care, but that’s how I’m feeling. I’m also greatly concerned this catheter could of done more damage to my cat.
I also have no idea how to make my cat comfortable at home in a cage, with a catheter.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated
If you want to read the whole ordeal, it’s below. If not, I would greatly appreciate advice and help with making things ok for my cat in an uncomfortable situation. Thanks in advance!
My cat is about 1 year and 5 months months old. Since October 2019 he has had major FIC. This has been an insane journey with MANY different vets.
I know FIC is claimed to be caused by stress. I have tried investigated all areas of my cats life life a detective. We rescued my cat as a kitten and because of his rough start to life he does have separation anxiety and is fearful of new people ( especially men ) He loves my Mom, so when my husband and I travel to see my in-laws we have my Mom cat sit. We are never away for more than 8 hours.
My cat gets a lot of attention, has multiple cat trees, cat tunnels, interactive toys, scheduled play time, and a water fountain.
I will admit that when FIC Started I was not knowledgeable about FIC at all. My childhood cat became blocked when I was in high school, but I had no knowledge FIC. In October 2019 when I noticed that my cat was in an out of the litter box I took him to an emergency care clinic at 11:00 pm at night. A $300 visit told me that my cat was not blocked, he prob had FIC, and they gave me a 3 day anti biotic. The antibiotic seemed to work because he got better. I had no idea that this commonly happened, but that antibiotics barely do anything.
A week later, my cat is in an out of the litter again. This was on a Sunday, so yet again I have to take him to an emergency clinic. $400 later, they say he is not blocked and they did an ultrasound telling me bladder looks normal. They give me another antibiotic. This time a duration of 1 week. They recommend I get xrays, bloodwork, and urinalysis work done to rule out infection.
So I call my regular vet, and schedule to have this done. My regular vet was booked so I had to schedule it 3 weeks out.
I never made it to that appointment, because a week later my cat was in an out of the box again so I took him to emergency. I decided to get all the work done there. $800 later, his blood came back normal, his urine normal, xrays normal, no blockage. They recommended my cat start prescription food to prevent blockage. My cat was eating Blue Buffalo wet food, but he wouldn’t touch prescription wet food. So I put him on prescription dry. < ( big mistake)
Fast forward to January and my cat is having issues again. This time I managed to get an appointment with my regular vet who was willing to get the blood work and urinalysis faxed to them. Even though the other urinalysis showed no infection, it was done a month or so prior so they prescribed another round of antibiotics to be “safe.”($105 for this visit)
My cat had 2 days of the antibiotic left and I was almost out. ( Because of two failed attempts giving it to him, I waisted a decent amount) I called my vet asking them to fill it because a blizzard was coming and they refused because their policy is 24 hour notice. I knew how dangerous this is to not finish an antibiotic and I was very annoyed they were allowing their “policy” to interfere with an animals well being. I was very nice and explained I understood but there was a blizzard about to happen. They didn’t care. I called a different vet who I never went to, explained the situation, and they prescribed me the remaining antibiotic. I changed permanently to this vet.
The new vet said he wanted a urinalysis. I explained we already had it done but he wanted it again. So we got the urinalysis ($350 because cat had to stay all day to get fluids in him. (When he has cystitis he doesn’t drink so he needed fluids. Urine was normal. He said it was FIC and to make sure my cat was eating prescription food, and prescription wet food. He explained it would help with the FIC.
My cat wouldn’t touch the prescription wet food so I tried giving the usual blue buffalo with the prescription dry. My cats urine never showed an abnormal amount of crystals so I always assumed that blockage wasn’t going to be a problem. ( i was very wrong and misinformed) My cat now wanted nothing to do with blue Buffalo. So i made another HORRIBLE mistake and fed him fancy feast broth as a snack. I wanted to try it so I could mix a D-mannose supplement with it for urinary issues. I used the chicken broth because the D-mannose was chicken flavored. Eventually my cat didn’t like the chicken broth anymore, he only liked the fish. He wouldn’t eat the fancy feast fish broth with the chicken flavored D-mannose, so I stopped the D-mannose. Fish broth = Big mistake
From January to April,we had spent $1955 on the vet bills alone and my cat was still having cystitis episodes but I knew to not rush him to the vet at this point. I became a bit wiser and monitored him closely and if I saw pee was a decent amount I waited for it to subside.
I also gave him cantharis during cystitis episodes and it seemed to work.
Fast forward to April 21st, an I knew something was off. My cat was not on my bed meowing to be fed when I woke up. Instead, he was by his litter, and I could see he was in insane amounts of pain. My husband was still remote teaching at this time, so I was texting him while I was with the cat, pleading for him to come see the cat on his next break. He comes to us and I am cradling my furbaby telling my husband we needed to get him to the vet. Once my husband saw the cat could barely walk, he agreed. Cat gets to the vet, cat is blocked. Cat was unblocked and came home 3 days later. 1st day dripping blood everywhere. ( His urine had been bloody since 1st cystitis episode in October) We took him back for check up next day as the vet requested, and vet palpated his bladder, and said urine flow was good and to bring him back again Monday.
I could see that my cat was not peeing anything but a drop and expressed concern to my vet. Vet said it was normal because he just had catheter. The next day, I noticed my cat wasn’t even dripping, and would not eat again.
I drove him to the vet. Surprise surprise, blocked again. This time he was at the vet over night. The vet said he was peeing great, and he flushed him a couple times, and he could come home.
$3000 later, I had my cat home. I also found a prescription wet food he liked and switched him to that. I assumed the low quality fish of the fancy feast broths caused the blockage. My cats urine was no longer bloody as well.
Fast forward to end of May. I took my cat back to the vet concerned because his urine was not normal size. It seemed like it was always a dropplet, not a normal amount.
The vet palpated his bladder, said he had a good urine flow and wasn’t blocked, and recommended another urinalysis to rule out infection and to see what type of supplements he could recommend based on his urine make up.
At this point I’m feeling like he is trying to milk me for money because every urinalysis has showed no infection but I am very willing to comply He gives me special litter that wont absorb the urine so I can collect a sample.
Problem was, my cat wasn’t urinating more than droplets so I knew it would be hard to do.
2 week later, I notice my cat is having a cystitis episode again and is still not peeing normal , I call the vet and I talk to a vet tech.
I explain that It’s impossible to get a urine sample because my cat is only peeing drops in the litter box. I explain that he will randomly flinch his body and pee a drop or two on the floor. I suspect it’s mechanical and ask for the medication given to him before to help relax his urethra.
The vet tech tells me they don’t want to prescribe that because they suspect it could be an infection again and they don’t want him to get bad like before. I’m completely confused. “Infection? He had an infection before?,” I asked.
She says, “Yes, he did,” I am blown away because they didn’t tell me that when he was blocked. So I obey and take him to the vet. Oddly, my vet is not there. He left for the summer and it’s a new vet.
My vet was a pro at palpating the bladder. This vet couldn’t palpate the bladder and the vet tech told me he took out the urine with a needle.
I paid $280 for urinalysis and for 4 pills to relax his urethra. I thought great, they finally gave me what I asked for.
I get home that night and I start thinking about what had just happened. I realized they couldn’t palpate the bladder and get a urine flow from my cat. I say to my husband, the cat must be blocked.
My husband says, no they would of told you.
The next morning, my cat is very bad. He didn’t come up for food. He was laying in his litter box. My husband at this point is teaching at school; and my car is in the shop. I call the vet an explain how my cat is behaving.
The vet tech says, take him in right away! We couldn’t get urine out from him yesterday and were hoping the pills would help relax his urethra. I’m upset they didn’t TELL me this the day before. I panic and take an UBER with my cat to the vet. Leave the cat there and take an uber home.
I get home, and they call and tell me he is blocked and they need to know what to do NOW. I panic and let them know we have no money to spend, I have to get a hold of my husband who is teaching. We had just spent over $3000 with last blockage and another $280 for urinalysis to be sent to lab.
I call my husband, and my husband calls the vet and gets them to agree on unblocking the cat for $550 and sending him home with a catheter and cage for 2 days.
We paid another $70 to have them keep the cat overnight for 1st night, so that he is only home in cage with catheter for 1 night.
Turns out, this blockage was Mechanical!!! No obstruction, but mechanical.
Part of me wonders if my regular vet was there ( the one who was great at palpating the bladder) if my cat wouldn’t of had to be catheterized.
I’m also upset feeling so misguided and I feel like my husband and I are being drained for money with no care for my cat.
I know they care, but that’s how I’m feeling. I’m also greatly concerned this catheter could of done more damage to my cat.
I also have no idea how to make my cat comfortable at home in a cage, with a catheter.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated
