"Sludgy" bladder - anyone else's cat had this?

[shockedballoon]

Our nearly 7yo male tabby started peeing inside in various places & hissing if you went near him when he did this.

Couple of vet trips, an ultrasound, a fun day on morphine (him, not me!) and urine culture later... and he has a "very sludgy bladder" but the test showed it was struvite crystals not anything cancery or calciumy.

As such he's been put on a strict diet of Purina Pro Plan Urinary food, mix of wet and dry - water added to the dry food. This will apparently dissolve the sludge.

If your cat had something similar, howhow long did it take the food to work??

He's still peeing in the house so is confined to the hallway/stairwell/bathroom and is only allowed supervised access to the lounge when he likes to sit on our laps in the evenings. To cover his fave peeing spots he has 4 litter trays and 3 cardboard with newspaper & kitchen roll areas, and he wees in the bath as well.
Before this he always went outside to the point where we haven't had a litter tray indoors for years.
Is he going to get better or is this just how he is forever now...
(Pic included coz he might be currently very pissy but goddamn he's still handsome)

He's still in - his pain needed the IV good stuff today. They're weaning him off it overnight and seeing how he does on the oral stuff tomorrow. Will find out in the afternoon if he can come home.
Feeling a bit maudlin and sad for him. Worried how his recovery is going to go at home and scared he'll knock the scab off or pop his stiches jumping onto the window ledge in his recovery room or something.

Please give yourself a break- you let him have the op because you love him and otherwise the prognosis was bad.
You are caring for him him in the best way you can. Yes he is not happy now but he will get better

@shockedballoon this is major stuff for you both. I hope he's better tomorrow.

Thinking of you and Bootsy and going he comes home soon@shockedballoon

Hoping he cones home soon, I mean

HEEESSS HOOOME! He was NOT happy that he's confined to one room and sat yowling at the door for a bit even though me & DS were sat with him, and he has already broken the no jumping rule. Got his 8 hrly gabapentin down him so he's pretty stoned now. Next one at 11pm. Got to go - the in laws just arrived (hectic day!)

Ok, so I've sneaked off to spend some cuddle time with my boy.
This week has been so stressful all round. Inbetween Bootsy, work, managing/taxi-ing the 15yo, household stuff and getting ready for the in-laws with v little help from DH (not a diss, run up to Xmas is his make or break time so he's super busy)... I feel a crash coming on on Sunday!!
Boosty has managed to get out his collar twice already. I think I've got it the right amount of tight now though.
Here he is after lots of sleepy forehead rubs, nose kisses and chin scritches, safe and happy in his own bed. He is both sleepy purring and I swear he's smiling 😊 😊

Aww, he does look very happy to be home. Bless him, he’s been through the mill (as have you) x

Oh so glad he's back and causing havoc! Keep us all updated with any progress with the peeing!

@shockedballoon how is bootsy?

Oof, crazy weekend. Need another one to get over it!
Bootsy has settled down somewhat and I think he's doing pretty well.. ?

He can only use his food bowl ( small, raised and on a slight angle) because of the cone, but won't drink out of anything apart from his usual beaker which I have to hold for him. As I can't be there constantly to give him a drink, I'm only giving him wet food which I'm adding extra water to, so that it's basically soup.
Seems to be working as he's doing lots of wees which is good.

He gets a couple of biscuits when he takes his pills. He's on 100mg gabapentin every 8 hours - 3 days left - & has his last dose of antibiotics this evening. He was on metacam but he got epic diarrhoea so checked with vet & they said to stop that - seems ok so far.

He is a bit smelly and keeps trying to groom himself, but obvs can't. I've been brushing his fur & giving him daily wipe downs with a flannel and warm dilute baby shampoo water, giving the shaved area a very wide berth (as instructed), which is helping a bit. Hard to keep his cone clean as well!

I've cat hospitalised the lounge/open plan area with puppy pads and he's has some time downstairs with us as he really really doesn't like being by himself in the box room, though we go in and give him cuddles a lot. Unfortunately I've got to go into work tomorrow so he'll be all on his own in that room all day.
No idea how he's going to manage when the gabapentin finishes as I think that's keeping him pretty sleepy and chill!!

Here he is having lap time with my son - we all have designated 'cat clothes' now so we don't end up smelling 😁 Also a pic of a Xmas decoration we modified in his honour...

Matt had diarrhoea on metacam too.
I’m currently staying at DDs looking after DGD while she’s in hospital for an induced birth (this is the fifth night in and no sign of baby yet).
I was a bit worried as it’s hard to keep track of Matt’s wees while only popping in a couple of times a day to put food down. And I wondered if the stress of me not being there might cause problems again, but thankfully he did a big wee while I was there this afternoon.
He hissed at the toddler who promptly burst into tears and ran towards me.

Awwww I love what you have done to that decoration in solidarity with Bootsy😻
Your cat hospital is perfect! Glad to hear he's weeing well😺

@Papergirl1968 that sounds pretty stressful all round! Hope your DGC makes an appearance soon & everything goes well. And Matt keeps doing the good big wees!!
Boosty has been in the lounge all evening with us - managed to jump up onto the sofa and found the only bit of sofa without a puppy pad on (the blanket) and snuggled down before I could whip one underneath him :D. I think the vets plan was to keep him super dopey for the first week to give the wound a proper chance to knit together.

Hi all, just reading through as I have left Morris at the vets this morning after a sleepless night with him trying to pee and howling in pain 😞

At the moment the plan is to either catheterise or use a needle to drain his bladder then a battery of scans and bloods to try and find the cause.

Best case scenario it's a bladder stone, worst case is urethra damage which may be untreatable apparently.

It's good to hear your positive stories while I wait for news - they said I might be able to collect him at teatime so here's hoping!

Pic for thread tax....

Good luck @HollywoodTease
@shockedballoon how is Bootsy?

Hope all goes well with Morris @HollywoodTease.
Don't be surprised if there are several vet visits (and huge bills) before it gets resolved.

Oh no @HollywoodTease poor Morris. You must be so worried - I know I was!! i will keep my fingers crossed for you.
Turned out that Bootsy had ended up with urethral damage, but his perineal urethrostomy seems to have sorted it right out (fingers crossed). I guess it depends where the damage is specifically? It is NOT a cheap option - though we had a fixed price of £3K for the operation. This has included the op itself, all his meds, an extra night stay whilst they got on top of his pain etc and the follow up visit on 27th december. We had already spent £4.8K getting to this point though, only £4k covered by insurance. Luckily we had some resources and family that we could cobble together.

@Breadcat24 The puss himself is doing so much better. He's now off all the meds (except cystease which we'll probs keep him on forever now). He's doing twice daily massive wees with no discomfort - he jumped into the bath and did one there (whilst I was attempting to give his stanky self a damp cloth wipe down) and it was a glorious pale yellow, as it should be. Hark at me getting excited by a cat peeing.....
He's back to his cheeky self as well, but very pissed off with the cone. He now has another nickname of conan the barbarian as he keeps illegally jumping onto the dining table & kitchen counter (though using a chair or the couch to break up the jump), knocking everything off with his cone and sitting his stanky-ass down. I am also spending a fortune on kitchen roll and anti-bacterial spray.
The wound area looks pretty neat to be honest - bit scabby, but no longer leaving any weepy blood stains when he sits. I reckon it'll be fully healed in another week - but obvs keeping the cone on until the vet visit as i don't want him undoing all the good work with his sandpaper tongue until the vet verifies it's sufficiently robust to take the damn good grooming I just know Bootsy is going to do as soon as the blasted cone is off!

It seems that his blood markers for something called creatinine are ridiculously high (over 10x "normal" levels) which is a strong indicator that there may be extensive kidney damage 😞

He will be transferred to kitty hospital this evening and will stay there for 2-3 days probably so we can get a proper diagnosis.

I'm not coping with this very well.....

Oh @HollywoodTease :( I hope they can get him sorted. It's such a worry - you feel so powerless, and its horrible not being able to explain things to him. Sending you a big huggy hand-hold. At least they will be keeping his pain under control whilst they get to the bottom of things xxx

@HollywoodTease how have things gone with Morris? Been thinking about him.

So after a few picture messages to the vet, Bootsy is allowed free(ish) reign in the house. But very strictly keeping the cone so he doesn't attempt to groom the area and I'm still to limit his activity - or at the very least not encourage it with toys etc...
Anyway, all in the right direction - plus I've got him a new 'cone' that he is much happier with as his face isn't as trapped or whiskers squished, but he still can't lick his bum (he has tried so I know it works). Pic coz it's ridiculous but he somehow manages to style it out

Hi, thanks for asking. The op seemed to go well, and he spent a couple of nights as an in-patient with a catheter in.

He came home Thursday night and it's not been too bad - he's eating and drinking and using the litter tray without straining but he's also been quite incontinent. I phoned the vet and they said it's OK, his bladder and urethra are probably still irritated and also he's still on gabapentin so is a bit out of it.

He's due for a post-op checkup on Monday so until then I'm just using puppy pads and wiping him down with warm water to help him clean himself.

Thread tax: having a snuggle yesterday ❤️

Oh bless him - gabapentin really does knock them out doesn't it. He looks very snuggly ❤️ What was the op for? Bladder stones?

Puppy pads are an absolute god send, we're going through loads of them thanks to the fact that Bootsy is not a fan of the litter tray... Fortunately he will use it for no2s but I kinda know when he's going to need a poo so shut him in the box room with the litter tray then.
He's never been a litter tray fan. Used to have 4 when he was a kitten and ended up confining him to the conservatory. As soon as he was neutered and allowed out, he never used them (or anywhere else in the house) again, until this autumn & all this business of course.

The op was to unblock him.

We don't know why he blocked, he's clear for stones and crystals and no "sludge" apparently, vet thinks it might have just been stress.

He's good with a litter tray and he is using it, but when he's resting or asleep he's leaking 😕

Bootsy's looking good, love that collar!

Pic coz it's ridiculous but he somehow manages to style it out
He certainly does @shockedballoon !