Actually, bladder INFECTIONS are much more common in female than male cats, and while uncomfortable, are rarely serious threats to overall health and survival. Bladder OBSTRUCTIONS are much more common in male cats (bladder infections are actually pretty UNcommon in males) and obstructions ARE quite serious, life-threatening and can readily be fatal. Tomcats with urinary tract obstructions are get-me-out-of-bed-at-2-a.m.-and-40-below-zero emergencies. However, because the urethra in female cats is much wider than in males, it’s pretty dang hard to obstruct one (not that it can’t be done) - however, it’s a nice open path for bacteria to enter the bladder, hence the relative frequency for female cat (and other species) bladder infections. Male animals (even cats, who are of relatively modest proportions) have a WAY longer urethra, and (especially in cats) it’s much narrower - therefore a long way for bacteria to go to cause bladder infections, but due to its narrowness, tons easier to obstruct. In the 10 years since I started seeing patients, I’ve seen tons of male cats with urinary obstructins, and tons of female cats with bladder infections, but NO female cats with obstructions, and ony 2 male cats in whom I could document (by means of urine culture or other data) a bladder infection. One of those two had a bladder polyp, and the other had a patent urachus (an abnormality of the bladder wall). My partners have seen a few male cat infectinos, but most of those have had bladder stones or surgical alterations which make them ‘pee like a girl’ - which eliminates the obstruction thing, but increases the infection thing.
Yes, you should take your kitty to the vet, and yes, it probaby is a bladder infection, which should clear up with antibiotics. It can be difficult to tell if the kitten is really unable to urinate since the bladder is SO irritated that they are trying to go all the time, poor things, even when the bladder is empty (and thus produces no urine). They usually strain, may vocalize, may have blood in the urine, may avoid the box and/or try to urinate on cool surfaces, may groom that area excessively, and are usually displaying frequency and unrgency in their urination behavior. I suspect that your kitten’s shaking and crying are due to the straining and discomfort, poor little pumpkin.
If the kitten does not respond to antibiotics or responds but relapses, there are some things to follow up on… stones, polyps and other abnormalities of the bladder can predispose to infection, and should be investigated if there is recurrence. In addition there are some dietary things that might contribute to crystal formation in the bladder (this is actually the culprit in obstructing tomcats, but while females rarely if ever obsrtuct from crystals, they sure as heck can irritate the bejesus out of the bladder). As a BTW, cranberry juice actually does help get rid of bladder infections (one of those old wives’ tales that is actually true)… the mechanism appears to be that the juice supresses the formation of a structure that allows the bacterium to attatch itself to the bladder wall, which means that its chances of being “evicted” when the animal urinates are lots higher. So, if your kitten is into tart, you can give a little cranberry juice (all-fruit juices are far preferable to the ones sweetened with corn syrup, and you can also find capsules in most health food stores, at least up here.)
Good luck with that and I hope she feels better soon! And for those who had tomcats die of obstruction, my sympathies. That’s hard on everyone. They’re usually very sick kitties and sometimes we lose on those despite our best efforts. You know you have to either euthanise or risk the procedure, since it is certain to be miserably and painfully fatal if you don’t do something, so your only chance to preserve life is to do the procedure. That’s not much comfort if it fails, though.