Older cat having 'accidents' in her sleep

[RightsaidFreud]

Just after some advice/experience of this if you have an older cat. Our old lady cat is 20, and is relatively good health for her age. She has regular blood tests for hyperthyoridsm and thus far, she's always had the all clear. She also had kidney/liver function tests about 6 months ago and they were all clear.

Recently, we have noticed she's been having small weeing accidents where she sleeps. She's usually really good at using her tray, and uses every day. She doesn't have accidents anywhere else in the house, and they aren't everyday. Even though she's old, she's relatively active, but does enjoy her sleep, and there hasn't been any change in her regular behaviour. Does anyone have any experience of older cats doing this? Is just incontinence in old age?

Urinary incontience is quite unusual in cats, I have seen it a few times and actually every single time the cat has been diabetic.
There could be other causes too so I think a trip to the vets is in order.

Thanks, have booked an appointment at the vet for her. If he test her for diabetes, will that be a blood test?

I've had two. One was a female cat who had just given birth. She was incontinent for about six weeks but then got over it. The other was an ancient cat, who wasn't diabetic, but was on her way out. In both cases I found puppy training pads in their beds were a handy way to deal with things.

Managed to get her to the vets and he's taken some blood to test her kidneys and for diabetes. He said it doesn't sound like a urine infection, but it's a case of crossing things off a list. So first, kidneys and diabetes.

Well done. That's one of the things that worries me for my old boy, particularly because he spends so much of his time in bed on his electric blanket.

Best of luck and let us know how it goes.

I will do, it's been 6 months since her last set of blood tests (apart from thyroid which was only about 1 month ago) so he said he would have suggested to have her bloods done again anyway. He said usually, any urination outside of the litterbox is an indication of an underlying problem, but she's such an old cat (he thinks one of the oldest at the practice) it could possibly be urine incontinence. It's just not usually seen because such old cats aren't usually seen.

Had her results back and it's excellent news, her kidneys are fine, and no sign of diabetes. Vet said she really is in excellent shape for 20. With regards her weeing, he said it could be incontinance but its very very rare. he said it doesn't really sound like an infection, and her white blood cell count was normal, so not indicating she's fighting anything off. He did suggest that it could be behavioural, it hadn't occurred to me, but we do occasionally wash her blanket that she sleeps on, which could stress her out, as i guess it removes her smell from it, so she could possibly be weeing a little bit to put her smell back on it.

We're going to keep a close eye on her, but we're just so relived that it isn't something more serious.

That's good news, lucky you for having such a healthy elderly cat!