Urine blockage in cats--Update

It is not a death sentence.

We had a cat with urinary blockage due to "gravel" in the bladder. We used the urinary tract health food from the vet for awhile, and it helped. Kitty is now on regular food, and so far, no further problems.

I hope things work out for you.

One of our kitties has experienced this. We switched his diet and are very aware of watching for urine in the litterbox. It's been two years and he's been fine.

My female cat, the one that was just at the emergency vet, had crystals in her urine and we were told to switch to all wet food (they had been getting all dry). She's super picky, so it took us about six tries before we found a wet food she would eat, but the difference has been amazing. Not only has she not had any further urinary tract issues, but she slimmed down some (had been kind of bloated) and her coat is so much softer!

My big guy (22 lbs in his prime, and not obese) had UT issues by the time he was 2. We worked with our vet, and changed his diet as needed, for 17 years. He died in my DH arms, 2 days  before his 19th birthday. Diet and monitoring urine elimination is key. It may not even turn into a chronic problem. I've had cats and guinea pigs with UTIs and stones, that are taken care of once, and thank goodness, never return. Hugs and best wishes to you and your fur baby.

I hope Ollie is back to his old self soon! We love our beasties so much, don't we?

Hi Emelle, I'm so sorry to hear about Ollie, but so relieved to read your update that he is on the mend. Yes, this is a very common problem with male cats. The main problem is nature designed cats to get some of their daily fluid requirements from other sources than drinking water, from their food. Once we came along with our dried commercial cat food in bags and started feeding this to our cats, and they were eating this solely as their diet they began to suffer. As cats in the wild they got that additional fluid requirement from the mice and other wild life they consumed. Some folks feed their cats canned food and this helps with the problem. That's why vets and other people are beginning to rethink a cat's healthy diet. Which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever when a vet sells you a bag of prescription diet cat food to fight this problem and it's dry cat food. That will help a tiny bit, but it's not the best way to go about it. You are better off with a canned cat food version of that.

Actually the best solution, is to feed you cat a diet called a "raw diet". You don't have to buy the expensive vet prescription diet cat food. Your cat will be much healthier, and you can solve this problem by using a product that is a powder formula that is the base of a cat food. You order it from a website at www.felineinstincts.com They have different formulas, but I just checked the website and the one they recommend for your cat, cats with Ollie's problem and cat's with crystals is their basic formula called, "My Natural Cat".

I must admit my dear cat, Biru, who just recently passed at the age of almost 17 and passed from chronic lifelong colon problems due to a deformed spine-would eat their kidney diseased cat formula. He was diagnosed with kidney disease in March of 2013.  I did use the vet formula for 3 months but Biru got much worse on it. His kidney disease got so much better on this raw diet (they ship you the powder, you buy the ground meat, and mix it up at home, very easy, a batch takes 15 minutes of time) Anyway, on this diet Biru's kidney disease got so much better it actually completely reversed. What I was admitting was we have no experience with the "Natural Cat" formula, both of our kitties ate the "kidney disease formula" for 18 months.

It is, however, in the end of course your decision. But it never hurts to have all of the facts. I spent 3 weeks researching to find an alternative food for Biru. I wasn't satisfied with the vet food, especially when I started researching it.

Debbie in MD.