1073. FLUTD and constipation in a cat

Hi Dr Sing, My name is Gary from Vancouver Canada, I really appreciate your blog and it gives me a lot of in depth on animal's medical problems.










I am not sure if you would accept inquiry from general public on Internet, but I would like to give it a try and see if you can drop me a quick notes.









I have a 19 month British shorthair cat. He is male, neutered. As I have learned the hard way, male cats are prong to FLUTD.









Two months ago, he was completely blocked. I took him to local vet here. They unblocked him and put him on prescription diet Hill's S/D for about a month.









He was peeing fine, but the flow was never that strong after catheteration. The doctor prescribe him with some medicine which helps relieve of urethra and it helped him for about a week.









We took him back to the vet for the follow up. He did urine test and found no crystal or inflammation. But around that time, my cat started to dribble during peeing. Doctor did a physical test on his bladder and found it was not big. Therefore we went home and put him on Hill's C/D and monitoring his peeing status. (we gave him more water in the wet foods to increase his water intake)









A week has passed by, he still dribbles. He usually goes into bathroom two to three times and each time takes a long time, it sometimes takes up to 5 minutes, I see urine pass through constantly, but again, it dribbles, not a stream.









We decided to take him to another vet today. This new doctor said his bladder is big, and need to do x-ray and catherteration again. We went ahead with it.









As we discussed about the result of the x-ray, doctor mentioned that he also has constipation problem.









This leads to several of my questions.









1. Ever since my cat got blocked the first time, we fed him prescription diet dry and wet foods with additional water in the wet foods. Why would he get re-blocked and suffer from constipation? I would assume the water intake is enough and it should resolve urethral obstruction and constipation problem









2. what is your opinion on raw foods and all wet foods for cat? From what I read online, it could resolve FLUTD and constipation problem.









3. Would prescription diet such as Hill's c/d and s/d cause constipation? or if doctor prescribe diet to address constipation issue, will it cause future FLUTD again?









4. what is the best diet you would recommend for my cat who suffer from both constipation and FLUTD caused by urethral obstruction?





















Thank you in advance for your help. I really hope I can hear back from you. I am just a desperate cat lover who is at loss and seeking help everywhere.









Thank you again and appreciate your time.









Gary

































Reply Forward

































Gary Chen









2:12 AM (4 hours ago)





















to me



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On Tue, Jul 10, 2012 at 10:05 AM, ..@gmail.com> wrote:





Thank you for your email. It is extremely difficult to know what causes FLUTD in a male neutered cat. Before answering your questions, I would like to know the following:



1. Results of urinary analysis and X-ray images taken by your two vets will be very useful.

1.1 Did the first vet's urine test show struvite crystals?

1.2 What does the second vet's urine results show? Do you have the results?

1.3 Any blood test results?



2. What type of cat litter you are using and how often you change the litter?

3. Any other cats in the house?

4. Any new events or pets like dogs introduced recently?

5. Constipation. You will know better whether your cat is constipated if you are the one cleaning up his litter. Is he constipated?



Can you provide the info?



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Hi Dr. Sing

Thanks for your reply. I am so glad that I can hear from you for 2nd opinion.





I will try my best to answer 1st set of question at this moment, if it's not thorough enough, I will get info my my vet.





1. 1 First vet's first urine test at the time of obstruction, show struvite crystals, therefore he gave him Hill's S/D. After a month on S/D, we went back for 2nd urine test, and the result was negative. but my cat, Maoru, wasn't peeing smoothly

1.2 Maoru is still with the 2nd vet, we will know result of the urine test today or tomorrow

1.3 Blood test was done by first vet, but I could not remember the result. I will have to find out for you





2. Maoru uses human toilet bowl instead of litter box, and we flush right after he uses toilet almost every time.

3. We just lost the other cat last Thursday due to breath arrest.

4. During first obstruction, there was no environment change, but I suspect constipation was a long term issue. Second obstruction slowly getting developed two weeks ago, and we lost our other cat last Thursday

5. yes, He is constipated. he's very inconsistent and irregular. He sometimes goes daily, then we worry less, but he could go every two days or sometimes goes into the third day. His X-ray yesterday did show a lot of feces in his body.