bladder stones in cats?

[natsnow]

 My cat has had issues with being in and out of the litter box pretty often.  He saw the vet about it and they said he had "urethral spasms."  We kept an eye on him and I noticed that he had blood in his urine.  Long story short, she just called and said he has a stone in his bladder - most likely calcium oxalate - and he needs surgery to take it out.  Just wondering if anyone else went through this and your experience. I'm kind of stressing about it :^)

[TrickyBob]

Time to change cat food to food that helps prevent this. I don't have experience with the surgery part though.

[natsnow]

what kind of diet?

[TrickyBob]

I was told just to buy the higher end cat food that says it helps prevent stones.

ETA: There's an actual formula though, I think, that you can follow. 

[thoseareradishes]

Both my parent's cat and dog had bladder stones. The cat's bladder was full of stones, but they were able to remove them all, and she never had them again, that we know of. She was like 15 or 16 when she died. They fed her (and the dog) special food for a long time, until she got old and they just fed she whatever she wanted. As far as I remember, recovery for both the dog and cat were fine. I do remember the dog cried a little when he peed for a couple of days, but he seemed to feel better pretty soon after.

Good luck! I hope your cat feels better soon.

[cuddlyevil]

Our last cat had bladder and kidney stones. We switched to the urniary tract s/o formula (royal canin) kitty food. It seemed to help, but not for long. The diet will only help prevent one kind of crystal, nothing can really be done to prevent the other kind.

We had to have our kitty euthanized because once we dealt with the stones, the real beast showed up in the form of end stage kidney diease--she was eating/drinking normally but barely peeing, there was nothing we could do.

[So_Fetch]

My kitty had this twice. He had to have a catheter put in and surgery. It's expensive. He was prescribed Hills Prescription Diet c/d (I believe s/o also has been prescribed). He also has some pills that basically relax his urethra because once he had it, it was almost like he worried himself into having it happen again.

My other (more trusted) vet basically told me that the food is 97% effective at preventing reoccurance (it's about $32 a bag for like 7 pounds). The Purina One for Urinary Health is 95% effective at preventing reoccurance and it's about $12 for 7 pounds. for awhile I was combining the two, but now I only do the purina because it's a pain to get to the vet to pick the other one up. He has been good since I started him on the food.

As a side note, if it becomes something that happens more than once or twice, there is a surgery that will basically widen the urethra (the vet said it's basically a sex change). The surgery is like 1/3 the price of the stone removal surgery. (I thought that was interesting).

Anyway, it is a fairly smooth procedure, so don't worry about that. It's good that you caught it early. Be mindful of kitty's potty habits once you get him home.

[natsnow]

I just went to pick him up. She said these are not the kind of stones that will shrink/dissolve. I really hope he doesn't have to go through this again. I'm going to keep a close on eye on him, but he's alone all day while we're at work.

This is just such a stressful time. We have about a million things going on and are about to move. I just feel like I'm going to lose it.

[natsnow]

Apr 19, 2013 21:17:42 GMT -5 happywife said:

Apr 19, 2013 15:50:18 GMT -5 natsnow said:

 She said these are not the kind of stones that will shrink/dissolve.

My sister was told the same thing. She was told the only solution was surgery. Obviously every case is different, but maybe it's worth a try.  I hope your kitty is better soon, having a sick pet really, really sucks.

ETA: what specific stones does your cat have?

the vet said most likely calcium oxalate because he didn't have crystals. she said she can't say with 100% certainty, but the struvite stones typically have crystals.

[natsnow]

she also said that it can be risky to try to shrink it, bc at this point it's too large to pass into the urethra, but a smaller stone could.