Post by Joxcee on May 29, 2010 23:48:51 GMT -5
Q: I'm checking to see if you can help me out. Years ago, my sister's cat was peeing all over the house, and there was blood in the urine. Sometimes faint, sometimes pink, sometimes blood red. She gave the cat 3 rounds of antibiotics, but it didn't work, so they threw the cat out of the house. The cat came and lived with me. She used the litter box (still blood in urine) for about 2 to 2-1/2 years, then started peeing all over the house. I took her to the vet and he said that they learned in the 3 years since giving her antibiotics that the cat didn't have a kidney/urinary tract infection, but something else. (Can't remember what they called it.) They gave me Lasix 12.5 and told me to give the cat half a pill for 30 days. Didn't work.
So I had to throw her out too. I felt really bad for her, since she and the outside cats didn't much like each other, and decided she could live in the garage. And there she's been for about a year. After throwing her out, I started buying her the urinary tract dry food. (Which she refused to eat in the house, but had to eat in the garage since she had limited choices.) She ate it really good over the winter, and her litter clumps went from dime & quarter size to about the size of my fist. (still blood in urine) However, now that it's warmed up, she isn't eating the dry as much, and her litter clumps are back to dime/quarter size. And I worry about her getting down like she had before. The Lasix had really livened her up, and she had her pissy attitude once again. She had been letting the outside cats get the better of her, but after the Lasix she was her "don't mess with me" bitchy self again. And she maintained that attitude with the urinary tract dry food.
So ... the other day I Googled "Lasix" and discovered it was a water pill, a diuretic ... so I Googled "Over the counter water pills+diuretic" ... and I learned that 'cranberries' are also a diuretic, and that a cat can be given 250mg of cranberry extract every day without ill effects. So I started opening the capsules I have and sprinkling the powder on the top of the cat's canned food. This is day four, and she's eating the food fine, so this looks like it might work.
However, I thought I'd ask you if you knew of other types of over the counter water pills/diuretics that I might use should she stop taking the cranberry extract. Or something that might work better for her than the cranberry. And of course it has to be safe for cats, and I'd need to know the proper dosage to give a cat.
If you don't know what will work best for a cat, that's fine, I can try Googling it to see if I can find that info.
I really hate that nothing has stopped the blood in her urine. If that can get fixed, then she should stop peeing all over the house, and then she should be able to go home ... or at least move back in with me. Right now, she's peeing all over my garage. But it ain't my house, so I'm not pulling my hair out over it. But, it would be really, really nice to put a stop to that. And I'm sure the cat would love to get that fixed as well. I can't image she's enjoying this ailment any more than the humans are.
I pray the cranberry extract, or whatever you might suggest, fixes the problem. At this point I'm guessing she'll have to take the cranberry extract/water pill every day for life ... because she does do better when taking the meds, even though the meds don't completely cure her, but it never fully goes away, and then comes back full force once the meds are done. So I'm wondering if this is just a permanent condition that will never go away.
Thanks for whatever help you can offer. Muchly appreciated.
