Urinary Incontinence After PU

[Rolo2018]

Hi Everyone,
My 2 year old Maine Coon had to have the dreaded PU surgery back on 10/13/2020. He has healed up since then, but we started to notice that he was dribbling urine everywhere in the house. We believe this is most likely just part of the healing process, but we’ve also caught him (what looks to be anyway) intentionally peeing on our furniture!
We make sure his litter box is clean and easy to access, but this doesn’t seem to be the problem since he does use it. He also doesn’t seem to be blocked since he will pee in the bathtub when when we have to bathe him. He’s not straining and there’s no blood in the urine. We’re waiting to hear back from his surgeon, but in the meantime, we’ve had to put him in a diaper just to save our house from smelling like his litter box (and yes, we also know the risks of using a diaper such as recurrent UTIs).
We have our first baby on the way, and we’re worried that we won’t be able to keep our cat for long if this is going to be a chronic problem. Has anyone else had this experience after the PU surgery and if so, what did you end up doing?
Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Furballsmom]

Hi! Welcome!!

we’re worried that we won’t be able to keep our cat for long

Wait to hear from your vet, but it shouldn't be chronic. My boy had the surgery and the only time he experienced dribbling was years later during an illness.
However, peeing on the furniture indicates to me that there's either emotional stress going on for him or pain, or both. Can you give him to a room of his own, to ease your stress and to eliminate him having to wear diapers? Give him all his things, cover anything that can't be moved out with a tarp or old shower curtain (new ones right out of the package have fumes), and also give him cat music now and then. MusicForCats is one source that has been quite successful for members' cats, and there is also RelaxMyCat, and Cat In My Arms on spotify and elsewhere.

By the way, did the vet say anything about his diet? He should be getting canned food, and have easy access to fresh-daily water.

 

[Rolo2018]

Hi! Welcome!!

Wait to hear from your vet, but it shouldn't be chronic. My boy had the surgery and the only time he experienced dribbling was years later during an illness.
However, peeing on the furniture indicates to me that there's either emotional stress going on for him or pain, or both. Can you give him to a room of his own, to ease your stress and to eliminate him having to wear diapers? Give him all his things, cover anything that can't be moved out with a tarp or old shower curtain (new ones right out of the package have fumes), and also give him cat music now and then. MusicForCats is one source that has been quite successful for members' cats, and there is also RelaxMyCat, and Cat In My Arms on spotify and elsewhere.

By the way, did the vet say anything about his diet? He should be getting canned food, and have easy access to fresh-daily water.

Hi Furballsmom,

Thanks for replying to my post!

Unfortunately, we would not be able to give him a room to his own, but he does basically have our upstairs loft to himself. He prefers to be out and about anyway (being in a room to himself actually seemed to have catapulted his stress and subsequent urinary blockage) and the loft allows him to spend a lot of one-on-one time with me and my husband. All his toys and his litter box are up here. The only things downstairs are really his cat tree and a scratching post. The house is pretty quiet otherwise.
We are also giving him a special urinary diet and making sure he has access to water, which are also upstairs in the loft away from our dog (who he has known since the dog was a 2 month old puppy). Prior to the urinary diet, we were giving him a mix of Tiki Cat wet food and Orijen dry food. He never seemed to have a problem with drinking a lot of water throughout the day even.
This routine has all been the same since before the PU, and it's only been since the surgery in October that he has had the urinary incontinence and dribbling. Considering the nature of the PU, I definitely get why he would be in any sort of emotional distress...
We also thought maybe he was having urgency and was having difficulty making it to his litter box on time, but this didn't fit with his behavioral pattern; he didn't seem to be rushing to get to his litter box. Multiple times we saw him just get up into his "peeing" position and pee directly on our couch right in front of us!
Thus, only after exhausting the simplest solutions first is when we introduced diapers, and this was only about 1 week ago. He was free of them up to then.
I saw a similar post on this from another owner on this forum, and after comparing their experience with ours, we're just not sure if our cat's kidneys were just too permanently damaged from the acute kidney injury 2 months ago.
It's unfortunate that money has to be a factor in all of this, but we already spent over $10,000 on his hospitalization and surgery, so taking him back in for revision or any other sort of work up is really not an option for us at this point in time.

 

[Furballsmom]

(being in a room to himself actually seemed to have catapulted his stress and subsequent urinary blockage)

What happened that you contained him then?

from the acute kidney injury 2 months ago.

So he was blocked really badly (not that there's any good blockage)?

Multiple times we saw him just get up into his "peeing" position and pee directly on our couch right in front of us!

Have you tried multiple boxes of different types and styles? Lowsided ones? Different litter? Have you tried putting a puppy pee pad into a box and see if he likes that better?

Try the music. I'm not thinking of just now regarding a room of his own (which, as you've stated, isn't an option anyway) but I was trying to look ahead so that you don't have to even remotely consider rehoming him.