Need advice - cat with urinary stress symptoms

[Falafel45]

Hi all,

Would really appreciate any advice from anyone who has experienced similar...

Backstory: we have two 10 year old female cats (from sample breeder but not sisters) and a 12 year old male. We also have 2 and 3 year old pugs and an 11 month old baby!

For the past 2/3 months one of my female cats has been having urinary issues.. she had one episode about 4 years ago that was put down to cystitis/infection caused by stress (us going away for a weekend) but antibiotics seemed to resolve it and she’s been fine. Fast forward to few months ago and I noticed she was weeing in our downstairs bathroom and there was blood so we went off to the vets and they said infection and she had a course of antibiotics. Still didn’t clear up so they then sent sample off to check for resistant bacteria but came back not showing anything. They gave her another round of antibiotics anyway but still didn’t work. She then had an ultrasound which came back normal. Vet then says it’s caused by stress so she has some anxiety pills: don’t work. Then she has anti inflammatory pills for 10 days which initially don’t work but whilst we were away on holiday again, seems to have improved as no wee anyway when I came back.

Now it’s started up again... I’m at my wits end. Waiting on an order for special food but all on back order so hard to get it. She’s straining to see and I don’t know if I should be taking her off to the vets yet again... also costing a fortune as even though we have insurance they won’t cover it because she had the one episode 4 years ago.

Please has anyone got any advice/ got a cat who has recovered from this? I’m really not sure what the issue is. I don’t know whether it’s our other female cat, the dogs, the baby, or a combination of everything causing stress or what? 😟

*sorry same breeder

I've had male cats who've gone through phases of having urinary infections. They say stress is a big factor. They both had to have catheters to flush them out on a couple of all occasions each. This really helped. Eventually they stopped getting infections. They were both on renal dry food from vets, and I believe that really helped. Plenty of water as well. Can you feed her separately and leave water down for her in a place that she likes to hang out? Put water in a wide brimmed glass. Cats like to drink water from a see-through vessel. Make sure she has her own litter tray close to her at all times. It's a lot of hard work for you, but hopefully she'll grow out of it.

I’d take her off dry and add a teaspoon of water to her wet food. Then mix a cystease capsule in for soreness. If she’s straining she’s got to go in.

Cystitis is very painful.

I use the purina urinary care for mine, anything else and you can't get her out of the litter tray!
Is she definitely weeing? That's the main thing really. Mine was and I thought she was struggling but it turned out she was weeping but felt the need to go when her bladder was empty.

Cystease really worked for my stressed female cat. I mix it with a licky lix every morning. Hth

My male just got over a urinary infection that the vet suspects may be stress related - the advice we got was:

• lots of water bowls in various places around the house plus a water fountain if necessary.
• add water to his food
• extra litter trays (maybe with different litter in)
• renal food
• plug-ins like Feliway etc.

Turn the bath tap on in my house I have various cups bowls and dishes of water but mine love a bathroom tap

Put an extra litter tray down and check whether there is any food stress happening you might need to seperate bowls and put some up high

My male cat has a tendency to this. Changing food and using feliway seems to be helping.