I just went through this exact same thing right after Thanksgiving. Is he on any special diet? My Dexter has FUD, which requires special food to keep crystals from forming in his urine. It’s been two years since we adopted him, and this was the first emergency trip to the vet we’ve had to make. Kinda freaked me out… but he’s good to go now. I think he managed to sneak a few bites out of the dog dish next door.
Glad to hear he’s ok.
Here’s the story of my “child”;
Little Guy (so named because we didn’t come up with another name in a reasonable amount of time and was calling him that in the mean time) had some urinary problems. I took him to The Kitty Clinic in Minneapolis, since a> I lived four blocks away and b> figured with that name, it had to be a good place. The person there squeezed the urine out of him, ran some tests, and gave him back. When the tests came back, they said there was some worry, but not enough to do anything.
About a month later, I’m in the process of moving into my new house. Little Guy has the same problem. I take him in. Person there says that there is nothing wrong with him. BULLSHIT
The next day, in the new neighborhood, I find Camden Pet Hospital and take him there on an emergency basis (saturday). They keep him until monday, run tests, etc. They tell me that he would have been dead by Sunday morning if I hadn’t brought him in. As it is, he has some serious infections from lack of care (f’ing Kitty Clinic! I so wanted to sue them!). $600 operation follows.
About two months later, even with new diet, Little Guy has still more problems. He gets so infected that he gets gangrene on his penis <shudder> and has to have another operation ($800) removing everything. Since that operation, he has had no genitalia, just a tube coming out of his bladder.
Fast forward 12.5 years;
Today, Little Guy is 17 years, 9 months old and still going strong. He’s my pride and joy budly boy. More than 95% of the time, he’s in the same room, within 10’ of me. Sleeps on my bed (on my legs), sits outside the shower in the morning. He’s no longer on any sort of special diet. In fact, he gets some of just about everything I eat. His favorite food in the universe is white meat turkey. He also loves ice cream and cream cheese.
Chicken Scratch - YAY for only a UTI! (Not that a UTI is good but, well, you know what I mean.) And my demented kitty-boy sleeps like that all the time.
Chimera - yikes! I hope the Kitty Clinic is out of business. The vet who saved my kitty-boy’s life had the bedside manner of a troll, but at least he knew how to treat him medically.
Good news, Chicken Scratch!
One of my girls, Sylvia, for several years now has been prone to UTIs caused by crystal buildup in her urinary tract. She’s on a special C/D food I buy at the vet’s that prevents the crystal formation. I found out the hard way that commercial catfoods formulated for urinary tract health don’t do the job for her. I keep the rest of my eight cats on the commerical version, though, so when Sylvia steals some of their food it’s less likely to harm her.
I don’t know if this holds true for all cats, but when Sylvia does have a problem, the signs are clear: She goes into the litterbox a lot more often than normal, stays much longer straining, and produces little or nothing. She also tries to go in sinks, bathtubs, and the like. She’ll leave behind little drops of urine with blood in them. That’s time to rush her to the vet for diagnosis and usually a course of antibiotics. But she hasn’t had an episode for a couple of years now, thank goodness.
“Formulated for urinary tract health” on a grocery store food (or even a premium food) doesn’t mean much.
The ones which actively work to prevent stones tend to be prescription veterinary diets available only from your vet. If overused, they can actually cause stones themselves (there are different types of urinary calculi and a more acid urine, which is what the anti-crystal diets promote because it dissolves one type of crystal, can actually cause another sort to form instead).
Oh no! No no no! I take my kitties Rex and C.C. to the Kitty Klinic! Was the vet you saw Dr. McMenomy? He seems like a good guy, but if he’s incompetent, I’m not taking my babies back there.