Gatsby is home again. 8/31 update #27.

[Prairie Purrs]

When Ashes got put on the UT food we just decided to have all the cats eat the same food. We never had any UT issues since with Ashes or any of the cats.

Gatsby eats separately from the other cats, so it's no problem to feed him a different diet. He has his own room because he hates other cats (any and all of them) with an unrelenting passion. I'm just hoping I can convince him to eat a UT diet.

As for the others, I've got some horribly picky eaters and the UT food would probably be a tough sell. I haven't been able to get Hagrid to eat anything other than Fancy Feast since his allergy attack flared up.

[krazyaboutkatz]

I'm sorry to hear about Gatsby. Hopefully he'll recover quickly and you won't have any more blockage problems with him. Did your vet tell you if he had crystals in his urine?

My Storm blocked 2 times and before the second time he was already eating a special veterinary diet. He had to have PU surgery because he had scar tissue and they couldn't even get a cather in him the second time. He was then put on Royal Canin Urinary S/O canned and dry food for quite a while but he'd still have UTI's some times. His urine would also some times be very concentrated and would some times still have some struvite crystals in it.

Now all of my cats are on a grain free diet and they eat Innova Evo dry and canned food. Storm gets 2 helpings of canned food mixed with some water every day and I know that this is helping him a lot. He hasn't had any problems since. A bigger plus is that all of my cats love this food. I'll keep Gatsby in my thoughts and prayers.

[Prairie Purrs]

Gats is back home and extremely pleased about it. He's on prednisolone and orbax for awhile, and the vet wants him eating s/d prescription dry food for now. I think I'll look into the Innova Evo, though.

Thanks to everyone for the well wishes and the good suggestions!

[Prairie Purrs]

Gatsby was doing well all month--eating his prescription food, using the litter box a bit more frequently than usual, but nothing to be alarmed about.

He had a checkup on Wednesday, and when the vet expressed some urine there was quite a lot of blood in it. The vet prescribed another course of antibiotics.

This morning Gatsby was in and out of the litter box about five times in a half hour, and it didn't appear to me that anything was coming out. So it was off to a clinic (as my vet will be out of town for the weekend) to find out what's going on.

The vet couldn't tell whether he was blocked again because there wasn't much urine in his bladder. So they're going to give him some fluids and keep an eye on him. X-rays didn't show any bladder stones, so that's good.

I really hope that my poor guy doesn't have ongoing problems with this. It's odd that he was in and out of the litter box so much with so little in his bladder. Maybe constipation this time? I don't know.

What a horrible month this has been! I just want to crawl in a hole.

[katladyd]

Unfortunately, some cats like my Ming, will block repeatedly until they either have surgery or are put on meds. Ming's last chance before surgery was meds, which he will take for the rest of his life. They keep the pipes clear, though, with no side effects! It's been almost a year since he has had a blockage and I do think that's a record! Just follow whatever your vet tells you to do. After two or three blockages, vets consider them predisposed to blockages and that means meds or surgery. Good luck and I hope Gatsby feels better quickly and can go home!

[Medusa]

What a horrible month this has been! I just want to crawl in a hole.

Who can blame you? First Hagrid, now this. If it's any comfort to you, though, when my Puddy went to the Bridge last September, 3 weeks later Pidge was diagnosed w/cardiomyopathy. Dr. Lee felt that she could go at any time but she's still here and doing well. So we'll send up more prayers that all will be well for Gatsby and for you, too. Keep the faythe.

[Prairie Purrs]

Well, he's not blocked, but he's a bit anemic. The vet was asking scary questions about whether he might have gotten into rat poison (zero chance of that) or whether he's been tested for feline leukemia. I don't think he's ever been tested, but he came indoors as a little kitten and his mama was negative.

They're going to keep him overnight. Even though he's passing some urine, they haven't gotten a sample for testing yet.

I'm pretty much terrified at this point. Why are my cats suddenly coming down with horrible mystery diseases? Kacey last year, Hagrid last week. Please just let Gatsby get better.

[jenluckenbach]

Prayers for Gatsby. Just remember how my Jim was blocked....better....WORSE......and now much better.

Hopefully this will pass. And don't worry about the vet asking about FELV, whenever there is a mystery, they always start there.

PS, the anemia could be from losing blood in the urine. We did not test Jim's blood, but with the amount of blood he was peeing, I would not be surprized if he was also anemic.