My male kitty had blocked urinary

[Bryn]

He finally came home with me this morning after staying at the vet for 3 nights.

Does anyone here have an experience with a blocked kitty? I did googling ... many times they will have it again so I am watching him close. I got lucky that the total amount for his 3 night stay, catherized, medication, etc. came to $322.00 including 4 cans of c/d which he will have to eat for rest of his life says his vet. I was terrified that it'd cost me between $800.00 and $2,000 according to other people for treatments of their blocked cats. Whew! I only get SSDI. A kind neighbor gave me 100.00 to help out so I will be ok.

My kitty boy's name is Thor, is 3 years old. He and his 2 siblings were born during thunderstorm so that's why his name is Thor after God of Thunder. Very affectionate. Here's a picture of him when he was 4 months old. He's 3 years old now.



Yes, it's really Thor. I created it via icanhazcheeseburger site.

[Walk away]

1. Do they know where the blockage is and what are they going...

to do about it. I have dogs but I am at the tail end of either a leak or a blockage causing fluid build up. They can't find it so they can't fix it. Can they unblock poor Thor?

[Bryn]

2. Thor has already been unblocked

thankfully, but I still have to watch him close as he can get blocked again. This is why he had urinary catheterization to drain his kidney/bladder. I have no experience with a blocked dogs. I thought usually it's male cats. Hope your dog is better.

Thor is using litterboxes (he has two clean litterboxes), peeing in small amounts.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. One of my cats has had several bouts of that.

One time I had to take him to the emergency vet and it got really, really expensive, not to mention painful for the kitty. Ever since then I've been feeding him that special cat food, which the vet says I should keep doing because regular cat food has too much of some mineral in it (magnesium?). Unfortunately, since I have three cats and it's really hard to feed them separately, they are all eating the prescription food. This won't hurt them, but the special stuff is more expensive. Anything for the kitties, though, and I sure don't want poor Milo to get sick again.

[Curmudgeoness]

4. I am glad to hear that Thor is going to be ok

and you really did luck out with the cost for the treatment.....that is almost unbelievable.

I will suggest what I do to everyone and tell you that the best information will be from your vet, not us idiots on the internet. Talk to your vet about any concerns or questions (because I have to say that your vet is not only interested in making money off of you). So since I have now done my duty, I had one cat who had a blockage. He was put on the prescription food, and we did not have that problem again. I did get him a water fountain to encourage him to drink lots of water as well as the food. Drinking lots of water helps to keep everything flushed out before stones can form. He loved the water fountain, but not all cats like them or will use them....they do have a pump and make some noise. And you want to keep a closer eye on his litter box habits and any changes, because they could signal a problem.

[yellerpup]

5. He's so cute!

Our boy Jake had several bouts of blockage. We live in an expensive part of NY so the vet bill for his first unblock was $1,100. He had another blockage about one month later and had to go to the Animal ER for stabilization, then to his regular vet the next day for $1,200. We were told that some cats have a genetic predisposition for forming the kidney stones that create the blockage, and that sometimes surgery was necessary to prevent another blockage. Female cats can suffer from kidney stones, too, but don't get blocked because their urethra (?) are larger and the stones just pass. What they finally had to do with Jake was reshape his organ so it was more open. When I explained Jake to the vet student who recently gave me two rescue kittehs said, "Oh, they made him into a girl." Rest assured the operation did not change his bad-boy personality, but he has not had another blockage. All the trips together, surgery, and surgical follow up cost a little over $6,000. We changed his diet. He gets NO crunchies ever and eats 2 cans of Fancy Feast, and two raw meat snacks a day. I feed him the same meat we eat, well washed and dried, only raw. His coat is glossy, he feels really playful. He was getting his figure back, but he has been cleaning up the baby kitty's food and is putting on weight again. If Mr. Pup hadn't had a great freelance job on the side that year, we couldn't have afforded it. Best of luck to you and your bright baby!

[lizerdbits]

6. My cat Max was blocked about 5 years ago

I'm glad you got a deal on the vet, it was about $1200 for me and he was there for 3 days. Max's BUN I think was close to 200 and the vet said there was a small chance his kidneys wouldn't recover but fortunately they did. He's been fine on a urinary formula food for about 5 years. It does make his poop stinkier though.

He's a cutie! I hope he does well on the new food. I remember my vet telling me to let them know if he didn't like it and they'd try another brand, but Max wolfed it down pretty quickly.

[Bryn]

7. Update on Thor

He seems to be doing good. He goes to litter boxes several times, pee size is like a quarter..not bad.

Here's the problem. He DOES NOT like c/d food! He's been trying to eat his fave dry food which he's not allowed so I took off all bowls of dry food when he's around, not in his room. I have 9 cats which can be tough! When this bag of dry food runs out I will buy all canned food. Normally I feed cats dry food in morning and canned (fancy feast which they love) at night.

Thank you so much for sharing your experiences with me concerning a blocked cat. It's no fun! So far he's ok. I got out cat fountain water yesterday that I had stored for a long while since I moved to this rented townhouse. Cats are kinda scared of it. lol Six of them had never seen it. I adopted 3 siblings then one of them turned out to be pregnant so she gave me three more named Thor, Isaz and Runic. I got them all fixed.

[ginnyinWI]

8. a link that may be very helpful.

http://www.catinfo.org/

The gist of it is that to keep your cat healthy, you need to take them off all dry food and put them on wet food, which is much closer to their natural diet. Dry food is too dry, leading to many diseases including urinary problems. You may not have to keep him on the prescription food for life if you follow this path instead. Give it a look, FWIW.

My female longhaired cat had a urinary thing about a year ago, maybe from stress, but she recovered and is fine eating a diet of mostly wet food, and only a coffee measure of dry per day. She loves the dry but it does not love her. I should really have her off all of it.

[Bryn]

9. Thank you for this great link

I am going to start feeding all of my cats wet food and am reading how to make them. I don't work and am retired so I do have plenty of time on hand. (early retirement at age 55) I am 62 now.

I had to force feed Thor c/d mixed with bottled water this morning. He hates c/d food. He does love canned food. I am going to grocery store to see if I can find good ground rather than "in gravy" canned food to mix in. I live in a small village and they do have limited good stuff for pets unless I drive to town which is approx. 40 min. away to PetsMart.

[ginnyinWI]

10. You're very welcome

Good luck with your kitty. I am almost the same age as you by the way.

[ginnyinWI]

11. and by the way...

somewhere on that site is a list of cat foods, by flavor, that have higher protein content. For example, some Friskies flavors have more good quality protein than some of the more expensive brands. I carry a list with me to the stores and pick those out most of the time. I don't often buy the really expensive ones: Friskies seems to be as good as any. Fancy Feast is saved for special treats. I have two cats and together they eat about 1.5 small cans per day, more or less. That's less than a dollar a day.