Mucus Plug In A Male Cat?

[rogue22912]

I was just wondering if anyone had an experience with a mucus plug in their male cats. I had to take my baby boy Gotham into the vet today as I sat and watched him try to go pee for close to a half an hour I knew something was wrong so I took him to an emergency vet.

They took him back and looked at him and then came and told us that he might have a blockage and we have 2 options that he could either stay overnight for a few days with him being catheterized which would cost some where between 2 thousand to 4 thousand.

Or they could cath him and flush out his bladder and send him home which would have been about 900 to 1100. Well I love my Gotham a whole lot but paying that kind of money would take all my rent money and most of my roommate rent money.

So they sent us to a low cost vet that they work with. So we go there and they took a look at him and they though it might have been just a bladder infection but when they tried to cath him to see if they could just flush him out real quick they ran into a mucus plug. So now Gotham has to stay there til monday to see if he gets better.

This vet is only charging us 560 for all the stuff that needs to be done. Sorry for the long post.

So I just want to know if any of you knows what might have caused the mucus plug? and what can I do from now on so he wont get another one?

 

[denice]

I don't know about a mucus plug. I know that cats get crystals in their urine which often also cause an infection, the crystals cause the blockage. Both male and female cats can have the crystals and infection, because of their anatomy males are much more likely to become blocked. It depends on the type of crystals what the long term management plan would be. Dietary changes, eating an exclusively wet diet and encouraging more water intake are the usual parts of a management plan.

 

[white shadow]

.
Hi rogue22912.

I wonder if what they're describing might be something called 'sludge'.....

There's a well-known Veterinarian, Dr. Lisa Pierson, who created an entire website to educate folks about feline nutrition...and then, over time, added articles on some of the health effects of nutritional pitfalls. (and later expanding again with other topics)

One of the articles is devoted to urinary system disease/conditions.....here is a snippet from there:

‘Sludge’ (cellular debris, mucus, proteinacious material, etc.), can be addressed with simply a water-rich diet (canned or homemade diet with added water) to flush it out but it is possible to have small stones hiding in this mixture that could be missed on radiographs or ultrasound and which could result in urethral blockage.

If your cat has a large amount of sludge in his bladder that you are now addressing with diet (s/d or simply canned/homemade food with added water), be sure to watch him carefully for any signs of a urethral blockage. I would not want to leave a cat like this unattended for more than ~12 hours in case he blocked.

Also note that meat-based diets promote an acidic urine (but not overly acidic like Hill’s s/d) and that carbohydrate-based diets promote an alkaline urine. Keep in mind that carbohydrates have no logical place in the feline diet.
​

You will find that excerpt in the section on "Prescription Diets" in her article here: Cat Urinary Tract Diseases: Cystitis, Urethral Obstruction, Urinary Tract Infection

IF that's what it turns out to be, while you still aren't 'out of the woods', you just may be lucky and have dodged a bullet....but, only time will tell.

I hope they have someone checking in on him before Monday in case he should fully block.

As for things you can do, denice gave you an excellent summary. I would add this tidbit from the snippet above:

...note that meat-based diets promote an acidic urine...Keep in mind that carbohydrates have no logical place in the feline diet.​

Hope that may help.
.

 

[rogue22912]

Okay he is home now and when he got home he was peeing like mad but now that its been a few hours he is trying to go pee and there is just nothing coming out. they didn't send me home with any med which I find odd so do I wait to see what happens tomorrow and maybe call the vet back and see if they will give us some meds

 

[jen]

It is very possible for him to block again. This is very serious if it happens again and he will have to go straight back to the vet. Perhaps they gave an antibiotic shot which is why they didn't send home meds. Get him on an all canned food diet asap and get him to drink as much water as you can, add tuna juice or anything to it to get his water intake increased.

What are you currently feeding? Please read that link above and follow what Dr Pierson says. That is great information.

 

[Sandy Beach]

My boy Elvis had this. They had to “milk” the mucus out (for lack of a better term) and then used a catheter to unblock him. Once he was unblocked, we switched from dry food to a high quality wet food ONLY diet and added water to his wet food for added hydration. Keeping your cat properly hydrated is key to ensuring another blockage does not happen. Dry diets keep them in a constant state of dehydration and encourage UTI’s as well as full urinary blockages.
We also bought water fountains to encourage drinking. He lived the rest of his life without experiencing another episode.

 

[lavishsqualor]

He needs to go back to the vet FIRST thing in the morning. The minute the vet opens their door you need to be walking in.

This is a very serious matter. Cats who go untreated die horribly excruciatingly painful deaths from blockages every day.

 

[rogue22912]

So we took him to an emergency vet that night he was blocked again and they said his bladder was hard as a rock and he stayed overnight and the following day he had to have surgery to go into his bladder and remove all the sludge that was in there. The ultra sound tech said it look like a beach in his bladder. He is home right now and he is resting in a kennel just a few min ago until I let him out to stretch his legs a bit.

 

[lavishsqualor]

How is he doing?

 

[rogue22912]

He is doing great. He just wants out of the kennel so bad so I let him out for a little bit every so often. I don't know if it is the pain killers that he is on but he is a lot more cuddly, or that he just feels a lot better now that he can pee and his bladder isn't full of stone crystals and sentiment. I have no idea how long he was dealing with a bladder full of stuff. This is an old picture I have cleaned the cage since then.