How can we keep our cat healthy post-surgery?

February 14, 2008 2:59 PM

My son's 5 yo male cat had surgery yesterday to correct a severely blocked urethra. Has anyone else gone through this, and have any tips on diet/lifestyle to prevent recurrence?

If he can urinate once the catheter is removed, then we can bring him home tomorrow (along with a $1,600 vet bill, but I'm trying not to think about that).

We're looking for diet and any other tips for keeping him as healthy as possible. I've read this related thread but wondered if anyone had gone through the surgery.

He's always been a superhealthy, trim, active indoor cat, but suddenly he was on death's door Tuesday night -- it was literally a 24 hour decline. Thanks in advance for any advice.

posted by mozhet to pets & animals (16 comments total)

I am so sorry! I went through the same thing with my male kitty - it was horrifying.

1) Lots of love and care while he is in the Elizabethan collar - this is depressing for them. Help him eat/drink, as this is difficult.

2) I switched to newspaper (you may also use shredded paper from your office) in the litter box. This prevents the grains of litter from getting into the wound. Five years in, I still use newspaper and it is so much cheaper and cleaner than litter - much preferred.

3) Don't hesitate to call the vet with any questions or concerns. (Remember the bill!). He will need lots of TLC.

Good luck. Poor kitty! I know it is tough but they bounce back - it is amazing.
posted by frumious bandersnatch at 3:26 PM on February 14

My kitty went through the same thing about 9 years ago. Was superhealthy and happy, but suddenly within hours, he almost died from a blockage. Thanks to the 24-hour emergency vet, he's now a happy, healthy 10 year old cat!

Things I've done to keep him that way: I only, and I mean *only*, feed him the prescription dry food the vet recommended, which in his case is Hill's Feline C/D. Even better would be to feed him *only* canned food, according to the vet - but kitty won't touch the stuff.

Also make sure the cat has access to clean, fresh drinking water at all times. Cats get lazy about drinking water, so anything you can do to encourage it is good - I give mine a fresh bowl of water a couple times a day. Somehow the newness of it gets him interested :)

You're on the right track by keeping him indoors, where you can control what he eats.

Other than those things, I haven't done anything else of note to keep him healthy. The main thing is to control what he eats, in order to keep the crystals that form the blockage from building up.
posted by chez shoes at 3:29 PM on February 14

My cat is prone to urinary crystals, which the vet said could cause a bloackage eventually. So I'm supposed to get him to drink more water.

So to this end, I bought a DrinkWell fountain. The theory behind them is that cats can't see still water as easy as they can see running water, so they will be more inclined to drink from the fountain. (Not to mention the curiosity factor).

I just got it last week, and I'm not yet convinced it's been worth the money. The cat was very interested for the first hour, and now is all ... eh. He may be drinking more when I'm not around, I can't tell. I would ask your vet if a fountain like this (there are other brands) might be useful in your situation.

Good luck with your kitty...
posted by SuperSquirrel at 3:40 PM on February 14

bloackage = blockage
posted by SuperSquirrel at 3:41 PM on February 14

Both of our cats had bad UTIs (but not as serious as your cat -- I hope he can come home tomorrow!), so after a few times, we switched them to wet food only. Before, they ate both wet and dry. We feed them Wellness canned food (chicken flavor) which is a pretty high-quality food that also contains blueberries and cranberries -- and just as with people, cranberries can help cat urinary tract health. The cats are definitely producing a lot more urine now because of all the liquid content of wet vs. dry, and that seems to help. (Knock on wood, they have been good since the switch, in terms of UTIs or crystals. And I have heard that it's a myth that cats need dry food to keep their teeth healthy -- it really isn't hard/crunchy enough.) Good luck!
posted by trillian at 4:28 PM on February 14

My male cat didn't have the surgery but he did have a problem with crystals. He was quite happy to make the switch to wet food, but the vet said that if he wouldn't I could try mixing dry food with water or broth to get some additional liquid into him. Your vet may recommend a prescription diet; mine tend to avoid prescription diets in favor of high-quality holistic diets (Wellness, Nature's Variety, etc.) whenever possible.

Also, she suggested that I offer multiple sources of water and try different things in them so he had options: a fountain or bubbler; drop an ice cube in a water bowl; add a couple of spoonfuls of clam juice, water from a can of tuna, or chicken or fish broth to flavor the water. (Obviously consult with your vet about flavorings and if you add flavor to the water you need to change it out several times a day.) He drank out of the fountain and liked drinking cold filtered water fresh from my PUR pitcher, but his absolute favorite was to catch the drops from my leaky tub faucet. So much so that when I got the faucet repaired, I would jiggle the handle so it still did that slow drip overnight.

It really seems like curiosity/novelty is the key to getting cats to drink. My oldest female prefers drinking from glasses or mugs and will stick her nose into any glass on the coffee table--I guess she thinks whatever I'm drinking is better than water in a bowl! I have a friend whose cat will ONLY drink from a pint glass.

Good luck to you and your son's kitty!
posted by weebil at 4:31 PM on February 14 [1 favorite]

Ah...re: what Trillian says about crunchy food and dental health, one of the younger vets at the practice I use says that the switch to recommending wet food only came while she was in school, so the vets who told us 10 or 15 years ago to feed crunchy food for crunchy teeth weren't wrong, just operating under the wisdom of the day. Studies done in the meantime have caused most in the veterinary community to believe that the increases in urinary problems, obesity, and diabetes that are tied to hard food diets outweigh any benefits to dental health.
posted by weebil at 4:45 PM on February 14

I had the same problem with my male cat. My vet put him on Nature's Recipe raw food diet and he's been great ever since. Raw food is an EXCELLENT way to go with your cats. He has more energy too; he's like a kitten again. It's easy to feed to him, you just thaw out some patties in water in the fridge.
posted by Holy foxy moxie batman! at 6:08 PM on February 14

Thanks so much for all the ideas and experience. We'll find out tomorrow if Dude recovered enough to urinate again and can come home. We'll try all those great ideas about the water and of course stick to whatever prescription food is recommended -- and no dinner scraps!

If he can't urinate, he would need to have a penis removal and reroute, and as much as I love that cat, it's an intervention we're not ready to make. Fingers crossed -- will post the outcome.
posted by mozhet at 6:22 PM on February 14

Seems draconian, but we had to do it to our kitty a long time ago. It worked. He was fine after that (and he used to block 2 - 3 times a week, nothing stopped it, we were running out of money, and sooner or later, we were going to miss an episode), and he lived to be 15 1/2 years old. No regrets afterwards.
posted by clarkstonian at 6:50 PM on February 14

Same thing happened to my Mom's cat, twice. It almost came down to changing him from Oliver to Olivia. Since the last blockage, she has been feeding him wet food sprinkled with salt (to make him thirsty) with water poured over it (about a cup). He also has fresh water available at all times. It's been around 2 years since the last blockage. This was recommended by her vet.
posted by i_like_camels at 8:20 PM on February 14

My vet recommended not only a switch from dry to wet food, but also avoiding fish-based food. Apparently terrestrial flavors (beef, chicken, turkey, etc.) tend to have lower mineral content (less bone meal) and are therefore less likely to cause crystals
posted by drdanger at 9:33 PM on February 14

Years ago I was told that a high ash content could lead to these blockages. Most cat foods list ash content on their labels. Tuna, etc. very high in ash.
posted by pointilist at 9:48 PM on February 14

Nthing the wet food, if he'll take it. Ours went from a crunchy diet to wet food, and they all liked it so much that they won't touch crunchies (except the youngest, who likes to try the dogs' food, but that's another issue). Since Logan also thinks water is for playing with and not drinking (we have both a Drinkwell and a Catit fountain, that the rest love), he now gets a small syringe of 3 mls of water every morning poured down his throat. Used to hate it, but now he just suffers through it. :) Good luck!
posted by tigerjade at 5:38 AM on February 15

If the surgery was "feminising", the cat should now be much less prone to blockage no matter what you feed him.

Feminising - which I think is much less common these days than it used to be about a decade ago - redirects the urethra out of the teeny hole in the pelvis through which it naturally passes in male cats (a particularly Unintelligent piece of Design by whoever's in charge) and gives the male cat much the same, superior, urinary tract routing as a female cat.

Now, inflammation of the urethra won't cause it to block up where it bottlenecks at the pelvis, and so urea crystal problems have to be far worse before anything really bad will happen.

The reason why feminising is much less common today, according to one vet I talked to at least, is that ordinary supermarket dry food now has less salt in it than it used to have. So blockages happen less often in the first place.
posted by dansdata at 8:37 AM on February 15

Thanks, all.

Poor Dude reclogged at the vet today, but is home now on Hill's prescription canned food. Have put bowls of water everywhere. Fingers crossed.
posted by mozhet at 8:27 PM on February 15