Aside from the usual horsey feeding, goat feeding, and checking on the garden to see if *crosses fingers* anything is actually starting to sprout in there. Unfortunately it has been cold the last few days and rather on the rainy side with a bit of snow mixed in. Thankfully, thus far, we haven't had any snain - snow + rain = snain. And then it happened. Our Cat-astrophe. Accio, the nasty housecat, decided he needed to pee on one of the newspapers on the table. Upon finding it we discovered that instead of pee, it was actually blood. Not pee mixed with blood. Not pee with a pink tint. But actually real, red, blood. We booked him in for an emergency vet visit and went in at 2:30pm to see the vet. They palpated his bladder hoping to get something, and took his temp then put out a litter box with a product called "no-absorb" in it, which is a litter that is made out of plastic pellets so the urine just falls through it for collection. Miraculously Accio went in the litter box in a matter of minutes so we finally got a sample out of him. The vet did a urinalysis and it came back as negative for any crystals in his urine. The vet was a little concerned that instead of blood mixed with pee he ended up urinating only blood and quite a bit of it.
After the urinalysis we had the vet do an x-ray to see if he had any stones scraping his urinary tract and came up with nothing on the x-ray. The vet came back and mentioned that Accio could have something they call "Chronic Urinary Inflammation" which is something the vet community has no idea what causes it but that it does happen and its not particularly life threatening, but needs to be treated to avoid other complications like a secondary infection. Accio may also have a Urinary Tract Infection to go along with this. She gave him an antibiotic and some anti-inflammatories and we've come home with him but she did say we may have to entertain the idea that Accio could have a mass, so in 10 days we're to take a urine sample and bring it in and then based upon the lack of blood or the presence of blood we'll have to make the decision to have him ultrasounded.
For now the beastly cat is living in solitary confinement in my room. As I type right now he is knocking things off shelves and occasionally lounging on the bed in his normal lounging fashion.
Aside from all the cat drama, tomorrow we are going to the other vets office to take the puppies in for their first shots, vet checks, and some talk about deworming.
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my cat Ollie suffered with every kind of urinary problem he could think up. we dealt with peeing blood, oxalate crystals, urinary infections, etc, etc, for YEARS. the vets (many, many vets) were no help: they just put him on antibiotics and sent us on our way. one suggested Science Diet, for life, but i wouldn't do it because that food is terrible. one suggested surgery to enlarge his urethra. i just knew there had to be a better solution.
ReplyDeleteafter LOTS of research, i finally decided to try a grain-free diet- grain sugars react with magnesium, a necessary mineral, to create urinary crystals AND they lower the pH of urine, making the crystals unlikely to be broken down and increasing the chances for urinary infections. i went with Taste of the Wild, but there are other feeds out there that are grain-free. i also purchased some Pet Naturals of Vermont Urinary Health pills. whenever Ollie seemed to be developing a problem, i started him on the Pet Naturals and it stopped it from progressing. he's been grain-free for over 3 years and he's not had a SINGLE problem since. he's not even needed the Pet Naturals for over two and a half years.
grain-free foods are more expensive, but they are so much more complete and nutritionally balanced that they need to eat a lot less each day. it actually costs me less to feed the grain-free because of this (and especially when you factor in the lack of medical bills!).
obviously, you shouldn't ignore what your vet has to say, but this might be a really great alternative to try. hopefully it will help you as much as it's helped me.
Thanks :) Accio underwent the x-ray and had an ultrasound on Monday and has been diagnosed with Idiopathic Interstitial Cystitis... He's on medication now and has been doing much better. I am considering switching him from the Royal Canin to a brand called Orijen, which is grain free.
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