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- Feb 14, 2018
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Hello,
My cat Gus and I are on a very rocky road. On 12/23/2017 I noticed Gus was acting odd just before noon; he was trying to pee on the couch. I followed him around the house for a while and started calling the vets in the area trying to catch one before they closed for the long holiday weekend.
I was lucky and a vet stayed open to see us; Gus was completely blocked but the x-rays showed no bladder stones. Gus stayed at the vet's all weekend and did not reblock. We picked him up on Tuesday and left with a prescription food but the vet gave us a hard food. I took him to my normal vet that Friday. She did an ultrasound while she was testing his urine and said his bladder looked like a snow globe. I got prescription canned food for him and more antibiotics; the plan was to check him in 2 weeks to see if the crystals had dissolved. The next day he was blocked again; this time my vet flushed his bladder out a couple times and we talked about doing a PU surgery if it happened again.
This time we made it almost 3 weeks before he blocked again and I had to rush him to the emergency vet on a Sunday. I made and appointment with my normal vet to have the PU surgery for that Thursday; he blocked again before we could. Fortunately, we were able to do the surgery as planned.
After the surgery, my vet was concerned about stricturing and saw him every day to check. Gus actually did well while healing he hated the cone and liked to throw the litter around. Once the stitches were removed and Gus was released from his room he was a ball of energy.
A week later Gus started struggling to pee again and was only going in small amounts. So we took him back in; he was blocked again. The vet gave us 3 options; the first was to try to run a catheter and keep him for about a week with it in. If she couldn't run the catheter the only other options were another surgery which had very little chance of success or to let him go. I decided that we should try the catheter first before we made the final decision; after all Gus is a young fit cat with no other health problems.
Fortunately, the catheter worked even though there was a small tear in his eurthra. The vet says that he has a horrible UTI and that could have caused the blockage. To be honest and I hope I'm wrong I think we may have just bought him a little time; but not much.
I have gone through so many forums and articles about the PU surgery, crystals, UTI's, and the possibility of FLUTD/ FIC.
My vet mentioned that she see's more cats on a Blue Buffalo diet with this issue than anything else. Gus is still on a canned prescription diet that I water down with drinking water and I've started making cat food for everyone else (with vitamin supliments). We have a water fountain for them and have started filling it with bottled water because the tap water is hard.
I would appreciate hearing others stories and seeing if anyone has any pointers.
My cat Gus and I are on a very rocky road. On 12/23/2017 I noticed Gus was acting odd just before noon; he was trying to pee on the couch. I followed him around the house for a while and started calling the vets in the area trying to catch one before they closed for the long holiday weekend.
I was lucky and a vet stayed open to see us; Gus was completely blocked but the x-rays showed no bladder stones. Gus stayed at the vet's all weekend and did not reblock. We picked him up on Tuesday and left with a prescription food but the vet gave us a hard food. I took him to my normal vet that Friday. She did an ultrasound while she was testing his urine and said his bladder looked like a snow globe. I got prescription canned food for him and more antibiotics; the plan was to check him in 2 weeks to see if the crystals had dissolved. The next day he was blocked again; this time my vet flushed his bladder out a couple times and we talked about doing a PU surgery if it happened again.
This time we made it almost 3 weeks before he blocked again and I had to rush him to the emergency vet on a Sunday. I made and appointment with my normal vet to have the PU surgery for that Thursday; he blocked again before we could. Fortunately, we were able to do the surgery as planned.
After the surgery, my vet was concerned about stricturing and saw him every day to check. Gus actually did well while healing he hated the cone and liked to throw the litter around. Once the stitches were removed and Gus was released from his room he was a ball of energy.
A week later Gus started struggling to pee again and was only going in small amounts. So we took him back in; he was blocked again. The vet gave us 3 options; the first was to try to run a catheter and keep him for about a week with it in. If she couldn't run the catheter the only other options were another surgery which had very little chance of success or to let him go. I decided that we should try the catheter first before we made the final decision; after all Gus is a young fit cat with no other health problems.
Fortunately, the catheter worked even though there was a small tear in his eurthra. The vet says that he has a horrible UTI and that could have caused the blockage. To be honest and I hope I'm wrong I think we may have just bought him a little time; but not much.
I have gone through so many forums and articles about the PU surgery, crystals, UTI's, and the possibility of FLUTD/ FIC.
My vet mentioned that she see's more cats on a Blue Buffalo diet with this issue than anything else. Gus is still on a canned prescription diet that I water down with drinking water and I've started making cat food for everyone else (with vitamin supliments). We have a water fountain for them and have started filling it with bottled water because the tap water is hard.
I would appreciate hearing others stories and seeing if anyone has any pointers.
You and he have really been through the ringer - he's lucky to have someone who takes such good care of him and loves him so much. 
He was still going a little but he was also going around the house trying. We took him to the vet again and at least this time he wasn't blocked and didn't have a UTI however, it appears that he has strictured. They could not even get a catheter in him today. The vet was able to manually empty his bladder. Tomorrow the vet and I are going to talk and make a decision. We can have another surgery that is pretty much the corrective pu surgery with a 50/50 chance of success or we can let him go. The vet is offering to do the surgery at cost so at least we can afford it. We are split in our decision because we don't want him to suffer but we want to give him every chance possible.
