Cats and UTI's

I was just wondering if anyone has a cat who has chronic (ie twice yearly) Urinary Tract Infections? I have 2 cats and one (an overweight long haired one) has around 2 UTI's a year and its a total horror...she has one now.

She gets antibiotics in a pill form, and at christmas when she had one last, I gave her an antibiotic injection every other day. Neither of these seem to work too well, but feliway (the plug ins) do...

Anyway, just wondering if anyone else has had experience with this with their cats

Re: Cats and UTI's

Our cat has battled with urinary tract problems before. At one point he had a urinary tract blockage and we had to rush him to the vet - thank goodness we got him there in time. For years now he's been on a special food called Purina UR that is for urinary tract health (unfortunately, you can only get it from the vet), also, I add water to his food to ensure that he keeps flushing everything out of his system. Maybe you can ask your vet about giving that a try. Best wishes and I hope your cat is feeling better soon!

Re: Cats and UTI's

I was told by my vet that certain dry foods cause ash to build in their urinary tracts, and that is why many cats are prone to UTIs. He said that if you make sure they have plenty of water and also eat canned food, it's usually enough to flush their systems. Maybe check into changing their food?

Re: Cats and UTI's

It really depends if they are male or female. The UTI's are very different for each. We had a male who had frequent UTI's and even blockage that required two surgeries and eventually he passed away from it. We had to be very very careful what type of litter we used and that was almost always the problem. We must have tried 30-40 brands, our Vet eventually gave up suggestions, he was just prone to them in older age. Older males usually experience them more.

Then our female had one last year and the vet said it "could" be litter but he dounted it. Females usually get UTI's from the type of food they are eating. I forogt now what the vet said, but we had her on special food for a few months and shes been fine.

he also said Females are very picky about dirty litter boxes and will hold it in for long periods of times where he sees male cats dont do that, so we uped the cleaning of the litter box to more frequently.