Young cat with cystitis - advice?

[nibblerandco]

Haven't been on here in a while (trying to keep internet distractions to a minimum). However, my youngest cat (1.5 years old) now appears to have cystitis. She was straining in the box yesterday morning and passed pinkish urine. Later in the day she used the box twice (for piddle) within 10 minutes. I took her (and the urine-stained litter) to the out-of-hours vet service, where the vet confirmed the presence of blood by visual inspection. My cat had a physical exam and a shot of NSAID for inflammation and pain, and I'm to give her antibiotic twice a day for 10 days and collect a urine sample. Her physical showed her to be in excellent health otherwise - well hydrated, not underweight, normal temperature, pink gums, no abnormal discharge etc. Abdominal palpation found all organs to be normal and no undue tenderness, and the vet did not seem too concerned.

This morning there was a tiny bright clot of blood at the end of her urine. She is otherwise fine, eating normally, playing, and talking to me as usual. The vet asked about unusual stress but I can't think of any (other than us being out of salmon mousse for several days while we waited for the next batch in the mail). Nonetheless I'm a bit worried.

Has anyone else had this in a cat so young? Is there anything I should have checked? The vet didn't want to do blood work quite yet.

 

[margd]

There are a couple of things you might ask the vet about. First, did (s)he examine the urine for crystals?  Crystals often are associated with the symptoms your girl is showing and are generally treated with increased water intake and, if severe, with a switch to a prescription food that actually dissolves the crystals.  Royal Canin and Science Diet both make formulas for this.   The most important factor, however, is increasing your cat's water intake.  For this reason, it is advisable to feed her canned rather than dry food.  You can add water to the canned food to help even more with hydration.  

You might also ask to have her urine cultured so as to identify the actual bacteria involved, if there are any.  This enables the vet to target the organisms with a specific antibiotic, rather than just picking one and hoping it works.  

The vet is right that stress often has a lot to do with these episodes although it sounds like you have ruled that out.

Re: other young cats having this problem - my Chula developed identical symptoms to those of your cat when she was 2 years old.  It took 3 different antibiotics, a switch to canned food and at least two months before she was finally symptom free.  I also bought a fountain which encouraged her to drink more.   Had we not been able to resolve it, the next step was blood work and an ultrasound.  

Good luck!  Please let us know how she does. 

 

[nibblerandco]

Thanks for your reply. The vet has not examined the urine because I haven't yet collected it. They didn't have any hydrophobic litter left so I have to get her to use an empty tray...not sure how that will work out.

We have a fountain and several water bowls, but she and the other female cat are both dry food junkies. They do have salmon mousse in the morning and turkey mousse with water added in the evening, but I'm not sure how much wet the young girl actually eats in the evening. I'm perpetually trying to decrease their dry food consumption in favour of wet and perpetually caving in, usually in response to the elder girl's crying and acting up.

I'll ask about the bacterial culture when I (hopefully) bring in the urine sample. For now I guess decreasing the dry food is the name of the game.

 

[nibblerandco]

P. S. It's reassuring to hear that another young cat had this. I was imagining horrors such as early-onset kidney disease or cancer.

 

[margd]

This article might help -  [article="31138"]Transitioning Your Cat From Kibble To A New Type Of Food Canned Raw Or Homemade​[/article]  .  

Another thing that might reduce how much kibble they eat is to get a maze feeder that makes it more difficult to reach.  I have this one and really like it:

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• margd
• Dec 4, 2016

There is a newer model for about $6.00 more with an improved base that doesn't tip over as easily.   Also there are other food mazes out there - this is just the one I have.  Now when Paul or Chula go for kibble, they usually just eat a few pieces. 

It's unfortunate that the vet wasn't able to express her bladder when she was there so he could take a look at the urine.   If you have to take her back again, getting the urine one way or the other is going to be essential.

I hope your girl feels better soon! 

 

[missmimz]

Both fish and feeding dry food are linked to urinary issues. The best thing you can do is transition your cats to an all wet or raw food diet and provide them lots of fresh water to encourage drinking. Consider getting a water fountain if you don't already have one. 

 

[nibblerandco]

Locked my poor girl in the bathroom for several hours with an empty tray and got a urine sample, complete with a small blood clot. She cried plaintively and I felt awful (almost as bad as when I tricked her into the carrier to go to the vet). The urine looked cloudy. Anyway, it's at the vet's for analysis now.

That maze looks cool. My cats don't free-feed on dry though. They usually have a serving (which just got smaller) of dry in the morning and a can of salmon, then 2 cans of wet in the evening. This morning they got small servings of dry and two cans of wet (salmon and turkey). Tonight they'll have another turkey and either a rabbit or duck (not another salmon as I sometimes give). My eldest girl acted up quite a bit this morning when her usual amount of dry did not appear (she gets destructive, tearing back and forth, yowling, and scratching to get my attention). Hopefully she'll accept the new schedule without too much shredding of various things.

I feed raw intermittently, but have gotten out of the habit. It used to be their regular evening meal when they were younger.

I'll post when I hear from the vet. Thanks!

 

[fodder]

I highly recommend changing her diet as it is more than likely the cause. With the crystals, you should be able to physically see them after she urinates around the genitals. If clots are present she is probably in a fair bit of pain.

I have a cat that used to get really bad problems with crystals. One thing i used to give him when he was having troubles was  very mild solution of apple cider vinegar, cranberry juice and water. Around one cap full of acv. 2 caps full of cranberry juice in a normal sized coffee cup and the rest water. Stir it and then fill a med sized syringe(aprox 9ml) and give him that. That would clear it up almost immediately and give him instant relief.

The main thing to look at though is the diet. The foods you can get from the vet that are designed to deal with the problem come in both wet and dry form which is great and they really don't cost that much at all.
I hope everything turns out ok for you and kitty.

 

[nibblerandco]

Thanks for the tip about the liquid remedy. The only difficulty with that is that she's near impossible to syringe feed. I had to change liquid antibiotics for tablet form because I couldn't get the liquids into her. I have a fair bit of experience medicating cats, as my elder two both came with GI and respiratory issues that required daily liquid medication for several weeks, but she is quite the swatty impertinent little thing. 

I might convince her to drink it though -- she tastes all sorts of things (even tried to eat a Brazil nut once).

In any case, yesterday she had what looked like a more normal pee with no clot. Don't know if it's the antibiotics or the food change (they're down to half a cup of dry per day shared between three cats, and up to 4 small cans of wet food, 3 poultry, one salmon), but we will continue with both. She obviously has to finish her course of medication, and this perhaps will give me the tenacity to make a permanent switch to feeding substantially less dry (after having just bought 13 kilos of the stuff -- well that should last a while!).

Will update when I get results from the vet.