FLUTD - any help appreciated!

[WTAF]

I’m really struggling with my cat atm and wondering if anyone has experienced similar/has any advice. I will try and keep it as short as poss but it’s been a bit of a saga so far!

Female cat, age 8 this year. Dry food only. Always done toilet business outside, has always had a microchip cat flap and can come and go as she pleases 24-7. Always been a homely cat though, never out for more than 20 mins or so.

In late January I started to notice she’d peed on things in the house, only tiny amounts of pee but strong smell. She’d pee on anything left on the floor anywhere in the house, a cushion, a hoodie, anything. This went on a few weeks until I thought, if she wants to pee indoors, I’ll just get her a litter tray. Did so, worked v briefly but then she started peeing on the floor in front of it. And it had blood in it. So off to the vets we went, they prescribed a 4 day course of antibiotics and recommended I put Cystease on her food. This didn’t work at all, she took the course but nothing changed. Vet was also v unpleasant in manner, and so we went elsewhere.

The next vet said almost certain to be stress. So we now have been using feliway plug ins continuously since end of February. And still, she peed in the house. We were on the verge of going back to the vet when lockdown began, and so that got delayed.

Gradually the peeing got more frequent, more blood and she would cry when peeing. Did some reading, she ticked every box for symptoms of bladder stones/crystals. So I switched her to Purina urinary food, in the hope it might break down any crystals, if there were any. The peeing continued.

Three weeks ago I called the vet again. They won’t see her due to Covid but they did a telephone consultation. She was prescribed a 10 day course of antibiotics, plus loxicom for the pain. Again, this did nothing and on the tenth day I rang again to say no change. The vet then requested a urine sample, which I took in and when they analysed it they said no sign of an infection, urine clear. And advised she take a course of amitriptyline. So we began that last Friday.

Fast forward to today and it has not been a good week. Still she pees. Still she cries. Still there’s blood. Getting the amitriptyline into her is all but impossible, and tbh I’ve stopped trying as if it IS stress, it’s counter productive, she gets far more stressed by us trying to get her to take it.

What do I do? The vet says stones v rarely cause issues in female cats, and won’t scan. Do I keep pushing? Can I try something else? Is there anything else?! Literally nothing has changed in the house to make her feel stressed or upset, she’s the only pet, run of the house, does as she pleases, no new babies or neighbour cats or anything I can possibly think of! I just don’t know what to do. She’s miserable, I’m miserable, I’m so fed up of cleaning up pee and I don’t know what else I can try.

If anyone has any recommendations or experience I’d love to hear them! Thank you so much if you made it through all that 😩

I think I would be changing vets! She’s clearly in a lot of distress, I can’t believe they won’t even see her. Ours are open for ill animals - they meet people at the door and take the animal in, examine them and come back out.

Is there no wet food she’ll eat?.

She’s more of a grazer with food and will lick off gravy/jelly etc on wet food and then wander off, and by the time she comes back the meat has gone icky minus its coating! She does seem to really like the dry food and the Purina urinary food is def making her drink a lot more which is meant to help.

We’re currently using the PDSA as money isn’t great during furlough! Still ‘donating’ /paying as much as I can each time of course. She does have insurance but the excess is quite high I think. That’s why I haven’t changed vets again as yet.

Will she eat shredded food, or ‘soup’, rather than chunks? One of mine is very fussy and licks off any gravy/jelly and ignores the meat in that style of food. She will eat shredded style food like Blink or Applaws, or some pate style ones. Could you try that?

Is there another vet at the practice you could see? Does your insurance give you access to a vet helpline? We are with Tesco and they do.

Sometimes if they lick the sauce off but leave the meat it’s just not nice food.

Have you tried her on pate style tray food?. You can add a bit of water to it & it’s widely available. Most of it’s cereal free.

Is the food really what I need to focus on? I did not think that was a factor as she’s always been great with her food. Vets are always very pleased with her good teeth. She seems to really like the urinary food she’s on now and it’s certainly got her drinking more - would changing it again really make a difference do you think?

Well the meds aren’t working, are they? & it was the advice given to me when my departed boy started with recurrent uti.

Cheaper than a vet visit 🤷🏻‍♀️

The fact that they checked the urine make stones very unlikely, microscopy will have been done and if stones were present there would be crystals on the urine.
FLUTD is very difficult to treat and often you need 100% wet food, a product like cystease, Feliway Classic, meloxicam and modifications at home.
Where cats are peeing in the house I always suggest adding litter trays one pet cat plus a spare so we give them somewhere to go in the house.
It can take months to get right - in that vets take on the cats who are less likely to get homed- I have one who pees in the house and one with chronic skin problems. My peeing cat has restricted access to the house, takes l-tryptophan daily and at times meloxicam and still sometimes pees for no reason.

My girl had it on and off for a year, so I know how stressful it can be. Anything you can do to increase liquid intake, even if it is just licking the jelly/gravy (although I wouldn't feed dry and see if she ends up being hungry enough to eat the meat). Another option is cat milk (I used to water it down with a little water) while she has the problem - it'll increase liquid. Obviously you can't drench it, but a few drops water added to the dry. It all helps. You're probably aware but cats on dry cat food are likely to have more concentrated urine which irritates the bladder. My vet also prescribed Cystease (known as Cystaid) to start with. I ended up buying some online (look at Amazon and pet supplies) and giving it to my cat every day (it's easily mixed in with wet food) without fail. I did reduce it to 3x a week after a year, but kept her on it and the problem never reoccurred. It doesn't have any side effects.

Thank you 😊 we did stop the cystease for a while but I’ve been using it again since last week. I’ve found a product called Homeopet UTI Plus which has great reviews and a number of the reviews could be describing my cat. So I’ve ordered some, but unfortunately it is coming from the US so we’ve now got a bit of a wait! I will take on board re the wet food and cat milk though, and see if it has any effect.
I just wish I knew what the cause was. Frustrating!