I’m gonna apologize for the length of this in advance, it’s just a lot of stuff. I’m hoping somebody has had a similar experience and can help guide me a bit.
My 6 year old orange tabby blocked for the second time the other day. I rushed him to the emergency vet, the took him in and confirmed the block. They got a catheter in to drain his bladder, but what they didn’t find were any stones or crystals. From what I understand, his blocking was due to inflammation. I suppose that is probably the best news, all things considered, to get when your cat is blocked.
The first time he blocked (roughly 16 months ago), they discovered sediment in his bladder along with a kidney stone. While giving him an X-ray, they discovered he also had a diaphragmatic hernia. He was the runt of his litter, and we believe he was born with this. They informed my wife and I that they could not operate on his kidney stone unless the hernia was fixed, but we decided that the hernia surgery was way too risky and traumatic for our little guy to go through, so we opted to try changing his diet to dissolve the stone. It worked. After he came home, he recovered and within a couple weeks his stone was gone and he was back to normal.
Back to the other day.
He had been in the emergency vet for about 36 hours. We got a call at about 4am, and the doctor said that he had re-blocked. He suggested the possibility of a surgery that would remove his penis to create better urine flow. We were heartbroken. It’s a tough decision to decide between your cats life and putting him through a potentially traumatic surgery. Well, fast forward a few hours, the doctor called and informed us that he had peed. I can not describe the level of happiness achieved at that moment in time. I was able to go pick him up that afternoon and bring him home. I’m so worried about him re-blocking.
I did some digging for answers or solutions to this issue. One that stood out was about litter box cleanliness. I will be the first to tell you, we are guilty of not religiously cleaning our litter boxes (we have 2 cats). They’re not always dirty, we clean them, but with work and all of the things in life cleaning boxes twice a week is probably the norm. I feel embarrassed to admit this, but this is all a learning lesson. We haven’t had issues for almost a year and a half, so it was just business as usual. What I read claimed that not cleaning boxes religiously for some cats creates stress for them that may cause them to hold their urine. Which can cause a mess of problems. I’m wondering if this could be the issue considering they found no stones or crystals, only inflammation. Does anybody have experience with this?
Our little guy is also on Prozac for anxiety. I know anxiety can be a cause for blocking, but he just seems like the most chill guy ever. The doctor even told us how cool of a cat he was because he just gave head butts and purrs to everybody during his visit. We have him on a high moisture diet, no dry food.
tl/dr my cat blocked for the second time in 16 months and they didn’t find stones or crystals. Trying to find information to prevent this from happening again.
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