Let me tell you guys a story.

This is Whitaker

Whitaker is pretty much basically my kid, because when he was born, his mother didn't want him. My husband and I hand raised him, so he's really attached to us, and likes to follow us around and beg for attention and thinks we're his actual parents. It's pretty precious, actually.

Whitaker is four years old. He will be five on April 1st. This year (April-May kind of time frame, but I don't remember the exact date), he got really sick out of absolutely nowhere. I went to work one morning, and he was fine, chilling on my pillow, meowing at me, etc. I went to work, and it's all good. My husband was home, and everything was going normally. He left to hang out with some friends. I picked him up on my way home from work, and when we got home, everything had changed. The cats had been alone in the house for maybe four hours. Whitaker was hissing and whining whenever you tried to touch him. I assumed that he had eaten something that was causing his stomach to be upset and decided to keep an eye on him and see what happened, because he didn't seem physically injured. A couple of minutes later, he goes and uses the litter box and comes back, still hissing and crying, and then went to hide, which is what really freaked me out. We spend like 20 minutes trying to find him, and we finally find him, curled up and hissing in the kitchen cabinet. I pull him out and realize that he has puffed up to twice his normal size and he is freaking out when you touch him. Up until this point, I had only ever heard Whitaker hiss twice in his life, once when he was like four weeks old and we tried to give him first toy, and after her was neutered and he was grumpy from the anesthesia.

We rushed him to a 24 hour vet clinic, because I assumed that he had a bowel obstruction, because I had never seen a cat go from normal to being in this much pain in a 4 hour window. The vet spent like 5 minutes with him and then came back to say that he had a urinary blockage and that he needed either to have emergency surgery or to be put to sleep before he died of complications from the blockage. I totally freaked out. We spent about an hour in the vet's office, listening to our cat scream (because they literally would not do anything until we produced the first $600 of the $1200 that the procedure would cost, and we were broke at the time) calling basically everyone we knew to raise money to save our cat. Between friends and family we had the first $600 in and they started his procedure, and we raised the rest between friends and family and a gofundme page.

After his procedure, they looked at the contents of his bladder and did some xrays and couldn't figure out what had been causing the blockage. I had a friend who's cat had the same problem, and their xrays showed obvious bladder stones. With ours, nothing. They ran a blood test, and couldn't find anything that looked like an infection. They were basically at a loss, and said that they couldn't tell what might have caused him to suddenly have this problem other than potentially a mucus blockage. We were sent home with him and his prescription food, which they said he would most likely be on for the rest of his life, and we were told that we would need to do a urinalysis for him every 3 months ish. So far, everything keeps coming back clear, and our regular vet can't find any indication of there being a problem with him. So, how long to I keep being constantly worried about him? The emergency vet told me to make sure that someone checks on him every 24 hours at least in case of reblockage, so if we go out of town, either he comes with us, or someone goes to check on him. I was told to avoid anything that would stress him out like crowds, loud noises, the other cats playing too rough with him, and the vet at the emergency clinic made it sound really dire, like everyone would cause a relapse, even though he is the most laid back cat I have ever interacted with.

I just don't know what to do, or how worried I should be, or what needs to happen here, because no one at either vet clinic seems to have any idea what the original problem was and how we can avoid relapse, other than feeding him this food.

The food is another thing, too. It's like $40 for 7 pounds, so we had to buy these microchip activated cat bowls, because I can't afford to feed 6 cats food that is that expensive all the time, or it would be like $240 a month easily. Everyone has a microchip, and he can get into his bowl, but if he goes near their bowl, it closes, and they can get into their bowl, but if they go near his it closes. And that's great, except for how they are forcing his bowl open to get into his food at least once a week, and I have no idea why, because our vet said that we would be lucky to even get him to eat it, since typically cats don't like the way it tastes, and because it has less fat in it they should be less drawn to it. I have no idea how to convince my other cats to stop being jerks and trying to steal his food, other than correcting them when I see it, which doesn't always happen. Anyone have any thoughts on that?

It also sucked pretty badly that he couldn't have treats anymore, because shaking a bag of treats was pretty much the only way to get all of the cats into the same place so we didn't have to chase them down for flea treatment or something like that. Luckily, the company that makes his prescription food started making treats with the prescription, so we can still do that. It's the weirdest thing though- they aren't supposed to like it, but they bite my fingers to get the treats. What the hell, cats?

Has anyone ever had a cat with urinary tract issues? What did you do? How long was it a struggle? How long were you paranoid that your cat would relapse?

First, happy birthday!

My cat, Beowulf, had the same experience. Other than a predisposition to excess mucus in the bladder lining, we never identified a medical reason for his blockage. He's such a sweet, docile baby, too.

He's one happy cat now, though. Two years, no blockage! After the first year the fear gets a lot better. Now, I find that I'm rarely afraid of a recurrence. Our vet in the end attributed his blockage to life stressors, and so I put my mind at rest by slowly alleviating as many as I could.

Gosh six cats, that's a lot of hungry mouths. It sounds like he may not have enough dedicated space. Cat trees, edible plants, toys, pet blankets -- they can help give a sense of territory for him in tight confines. I also discovered through my experience that the litter box ratio is best when it's the number of cats + 1 in a multi-cat home -- and it helped tremendously.

Thanks. :)

I'm actually really glad to know that I'm not the only one who has a cat that just randomly out of nowhere started to have that problem.

I could see that his blockage might have been due to life stressing him out, because we were living in a house that was way too small for 2 people and six cats, and there wasn't any room for them to do anything really. Luckily that was a temporary situation, and I'm trying to eliminate stress for him as much as I can.

Six cats is a ton of cats, lol. They have two cat trees, and a ton of toys scattered around everywhere, and definitely have blankets. None of them will touch edible plants though, it's really weird. He actually has his own place to sleep which is in the open space below the drawer of my nightstand, which is where his mother gave birth to him, and he has the blanket that his mother used to sleep with him on when he was a baby. Litter boxes is the hardest part, because even with a two story house, we run out of good places to put them.

Sadly, it's an all-too-common occurrence among male cats. They tend to be the ones that suffer the most from all those issues, which is unfortunate, but I'm glad you guys were able to catch it! We have a male cat who is 7, and has (thankfully!) had no issues so far. However, my oldest cat, who is an 18 year old female, gave herself a UTI out of stress when my brother went away for university last year, so that was fun to deal with, fortunately she was treated quickly and has had no problems since (besides her, y'know... being old, haha!)

As for his feeding and such, is it possible to maybe feed him separately from the other cats? I know they have the microchip reader and such, but maybe having the bowl away from the other cats will reduce the temptation of them wanting to bug him/eat it themselves. Either that or just keep the feeder hidden until your guy wants to eat?

Definitely hear you! I'm glad to hear you guys have more space for everyone! I second Imperial, any way at all he can be fed separately?

We tried to feed him separately when he first got sick, but because all of our cats appreciate the ability to graze and eat whenever they want, he gets really grumpy when he has to be fed at a certain time. We did it for like a month and a half, and no one was adjusting, and it was causing more fights with them. And if his food isn't out whenever he feels like grazing, he'll start trying to eat pretty much anything he can reach, like people food (which we keep away from him, but he still tries), paper, tape, cords, etc. I thought about just isolating him in part of my house, but he really like the ability to spend time with his brothers, and everyone says that it's really bad to separate bonded cats.

I wish I could figure out a way to do that. Unfortunately, everything we have tried so far has failed.

First off, apologies if this post no longer applies- I know these things can last months though (through personal experience) so I thought I'd share our story too-

My husband got me Leo, a little white/ tabby patched kitten when he was 8 weeks old (he was found as part of a feral litter). All of his brothers and sisters had been adopted, and he was the last one picked- but I still think we got the pick of the litter with him! He'd had very minimal problems throughout his life, the worst being some tooth trouble which apparently is pretty common. We were able to nip these things in the bud, and things were pretty smooth sailing. That is, until September of 2015 when Leo was about 6 years old.

I came home from work one day and while sitting on the couch, I noticed that Leo was going in and out of his box every few minutes. He started growling a little and licking himself, then would run back to the box and cry there (his box is enclosed in a littler cabinet so I couldn't see what was going on, just hear him). I opened one of the doors a crack to see what was happening, and he was clearly straining to go, but not getting anything out. After a little research, I found out about the possible blockage issues that male cats can have and called the emergency vet near our house. After telling them what I was seeing, they told us to bring him in right away, which we did.

In this case, it turns out that Leo didn't have a blockage- in fact, they couldn't even feel his bladder, or get a urine sample out of him. They did something for him (gave him a shot to relax him? This part was a little fuzzy because I was so worried at the time), and told us to keep an eye on him but that he wasn't in immediate danger from a blockage. About two days later, I saw him doing his back and forth to the box, and this time when I looked, there was red in the little tiny bit of pee he had managed to produce- this warranted another trip back to the emergency vet because this was a new (and very troubling) symptom.

To make a really long story slightly shorter, we ended up spending A LOT of money on the back and fourths between the emergency vet, his regular vet, tests, ultrasounds, medications etc. While no one was ever able to get a concrete reasoning for his sudden issues, the consensus on this was that he had a bladder infection that made his bladder extremely irritated to the point that it was sloughing off the inner layer (hence the red color), and the infection itself made him feel like he had to use his box, and he'd fret so much about feeling like that all the time that it made him anxious and stressed. The vet told us there was a good chance he'd be prone to these types of issues in the future so we'd have to stay alert. The issue took a good two months to fully clear up, and for months after that I'd freak out if I saw him going to his box- even if he only went a few times a day, as is normal.

Thankfully the worry did go away with time, mostly when we went out of town for about a week an a half and had to have him boarded (which is obviously a stressor). He didn't have any problems, though I did warn the caretaker of his issues and she had a vet on standby just in case. Since then, he's been through an assortment of stressful situations (my husband or I going out of town for a few weeks, both of us being stressed at work and not being able to dedicate a lot of time to him, neighbors doing construction, etc), and he's been ok. The one long term thing we stuck with was the special food, despite its cost. I feel that's really helping keep him clear of crystals, potential blockages and other irritations. That and of course making sure he has fresh water all the time (he drinks well out of a bowl, but we have a fountain to encourage drinking too). We've also tried to dedicate at least 15 minutes a day to exercise time to get him running around and moving. We were originally using the Hills Urinary formula (which was working), but had to switch to the Metabolic + Urinary- basically bladder control for fat kitties. He's actually lost a few pounds and hasn't had any more bladder issues to this day- and I'm a lot more relaxed. I still periodically check him in the box to see if he's straining, and now and then I use a tush wipe (specifically for wiping cats/dogs rear ends) to see if there's any red but I haven't had any issues this far.

I really like the idea of the microchip specific bowls for your cats- perhaps you can fill the bowls of the other cats first and then feed your special food? Or put the special food in another room with the door closed for a period of time (15 minutes? Half hour?) so prescription food goes to to the right cat? Dedicate some time to play time to keep everyone else interested in something other than food stealing? Another thought is that the normal food your other cats are getting might not be filling them up- perhaps another food that has different ingredients or more good fiber vs something like corn or other fillers that some of the more basic brands use? I don't know if that's feasible or not, but it might be worth looking into. :) I'm glad that Whitaker's issue was spotted and taken care of, sounds like you're doing a great job in keeping an eye on him!

Hey! I'm a tech and I work overnights at a 24/7 emergency vet center, and I have six cats as well.We usually see a couple of these every week. Is your cat overweight? Usually they only need to be unblocked once, we have had a few come back though-it usually happens within a month of being blocked the first time.In that case the owner either euthanizes, chooses to unblock him again, or we do a Perineal Urethrostomy surgeryakla p/u. A p/u is unfortunately basically a sex change.

I honestly would ditch the prescription food. Vets aren't taught much about nutrition at all, other than they should recommend science diet or royal canin. They get a lot of perks from doing so. They frequently give us free things like lunches and things, and I'm sure the vets are making a nice profit off of it. Cats with history of being blocked should be on a high quality wet food only since dry food actually causes cats to be blocked in the first place. Like look at these ingredients, assuming he's on c/d "Chicken, Whole Grain Corn, Corn Gluten Meal, Whole Grain Wheat, Brewers Rice"Aside from chicken, 4/5 of the first ingredients are cheap fillers. I personally feed only grain free because my one cat is severely allergic to corn. You can look into that more if you want to, feline nutrition is a hobby of mine XD. OH! Also!As far as treats go you might want to try and find freeze dried turkey or something, they sell them at most pet stores.

Aww, poor kitty. I'm glad he's ok now though. I would freak out if we kept getting passed back and forth between vets like that.

The microchip bowls are awesome, but no matter which order I feed them in, the other cats want his food. I think it smells different, and they like the smell better. I'm probably going to try to figure out which ingredient it is that is making them want to eat it, and try to switch them onto something that has it. It's crazy. He's really apathetic towards it, like meh it's food, but the other cats go nuts for it.

And thanks. :) I am definitely trying to keep and eye on him and keep him from having issues again. He can be kind of a pain about it sometimes, like when he starts trying to just randomly eat paper or something, but he's worth it.

He weighs 12 pounds, I think, at least he did at his last checkup. They told me that he needed to lose some weight, but we've kind of been struggling with that because he's really lazy. At the time they did say that if he was going to reblock that it would most likely be within the first one or two months. They also said that if he blocked again they wouldn't want to catheter and unblock a second time but would want to go directly to the surgery, because apparently if he blocks twice, he is going to just keep doing it? They weren't the most helpful vet I've ever talked to.

The food thing was kind of insane. I asked them if we would ever be able to take him off of it, because I know some vets put cats on a prescription diet to try to help dissolve crystals or something like that, but they said that he would have to have it for the rest of his life. I do remember before Royal Canin was as big that vet would recommend a Science Diet food literally every time you were in their office. The food that he is on is actually the Royal Canin s/o, which is supposedly just as good as a wet food because it makes him thirsty and he will increase his water intake on his own.

The emergency vet just said that we needed to feed him the prescription food and follow up with our vet. Our normal vet wants a urinalysis every three months, and to see him twice a year and for him to be on the prescription food forever, which was really confusing considering that they never found any crystals that would have caused him to be blocked when they did the xrays and catheter and they were just really confused at the end of his hospital stay.

Oh that's not too bad! I've got a really fat lazy cat too, he doesn't play much but he does love this toy called "the Cats Meow" (it's one of those "as seen on tv things" XD) it runs on batteries which is great because I'm pretty lazy as well. He also loses his mind over Da Bird but he destroys it pretty fast and the refills are expensive. It's really hard to find a vet that's good, especially with cats. I wouldn't even take my cats to my work if I didn't get a discount because they all hate cats. It's weird -_-

Royal Canin is better at least. I loathe science diet, very few pets will even eat it XD. Blue Buffalo is starting to make prescription diets now too but I'm afraid to even look at how much those are going to cost haha. Some cats will drink more if you get a water fountain too. Mine were absolutely terrified of it and wouldn't drink out of it until I unplugged it :P

That seems like a lot. Have any of the urinalysis' shown anything? I feel like taking him to the vet that often is just going to cause him to be really stressed out, which can lead to him getting blocked again and other health issues. He's lucky to have you though! So many people choose to put their cat down over unblocking/anything involving money really.

Is the Cats Meow the thing where the little mouse shaped thingy spins around under a sheet? If that's the thing, we had one of those, and one of my other cats figured it out and just sat around pinning the mouse down so that no one else could play with it, because he's a jerk. They have a ton of toys that aren't automated, but they seem like they break everything that is, or they're afraid of it. Hex Bugs made cat toys with feathers on them, and for some reason they were scared of it.

They told me I would be lucky if I could even get him to eat Royal Canin, and it's like they fight over it. Anything Blue Buffalo makes, especially prescription, would be crazy probably. Are they even any good? I've heard a lot of mixed reviews about them. And we've gone through several water fountains, but they just throw all of the water out of them while no one is home, and then the motor stops working or the pump breaks or something. They were afraid of it at first, and then as soon as they figured it out, it was basically a toy.

None of his urinalysis' have shown anything. The vet didn't seem to find anything wrong with him, other than apparently that he's too fat. They were really emphasizing how fat he is and said that we might want to put him on low calorie food. He doesn't seem stressed out when he goes to the vet actually. He likes the attention. He was hand raised, so he loves people, and it's a cat only clinic so we don't end up running into big dogs trying to eat him or something lol. I'm glad I was able to save him. He's only 4, and because I raised him it's like he's my kid, so I'm pretty attached to him. The vet tech that we worked with basically walked into the room after they had looked at him for maybe 5 minutes (not even in the exam room we were in) and basically said "give us $1500 or have your cat put down." They refused to anything until I could produce at least $500 up front. They were jackasses about it too, and more or less treated me like if I didn't just casually have $1500 laying around for a cat related emergency, then I didn't need to have a cat.