Blocked Drains are Bad, Blocked Cats are Worse
Dr Jules Wilson MRCVS of the Maunu Rd branch of the Northland Veterinary Group HAS THIS SAY...
If you have ever had your drains blocked you will know the anxiety and heartache and cost of getting them fixed. If you own a middle aged, plump, inactive neutered male cat you could be sitting on a time bum (and I use the term advisedly).
Here's how the telephone call to the clinic usually goes; (Interestingly it is often after 10pm on a Saturday night) "Hello, my cat is constipated, he has been sitting in his litter tray for 20 minutes at a time and looks as though he is straining to poo. In between sitting on the toilet he spends most of his time licking his private parts very intensely ................. No, you are right I have not seen him pee for almost three days now......"
The most likely problem with this cat is that he has a blocked bladder/urethra (yep, you guessed it: the main drainage system). If you had not been able to have a pee for 24 hours imagine how you would feel? Imagine how your cat feels if he has not had a pee for three days. Imagine the size of his bladder (because those kidneys just keep on producing urine at 40 ml/kg/24 hours a day every day no matter what....). How long before you think that bladder will go 'BANG!'? Imagine the pain, the excruciating agony, you too would be wrestling with your penis trying to get it to work again.
All cat urine is a solution of water with heaps of various waste products dissolved in it. All cats urine contains struvite crystals (among other various types of crystals) in some amount. Urine that stays still and warm too long will soon start to contain precipitates of the crystals .... miniature razor blades suddenly appear in the urine. This, of course, makes urination uncomfortable. As the number of struvite crystals increase, the acidity of the urine changes to a caustic alkalinity, this makes urination even more uncomfortable (am I getting to technical yet?).
At this stage a spider web matrix (yes, just like the movie) of protein also decides not to remain in solution in the urine any longer. The protein spider web floats down and settles over the bladder exit. Then the web starts to trap the struvite crystals like little flies to cause a plug in the system. In this way the exit to the bladder is softly and securely sealed.
Over the previous few days or so the poor pussy cat was finding it uncomfortable or difficult to pee. An observant owner would have seen the cat visiting his litter tray more often than usual, passing small, squirty volumes of urine, and jigging about with discomfort. In many cases blood staining the urine is also seen. Today the cat cannot pee, the bladder starts to inflate, the urine begins to cause back pressure up to the kidneys, the waste products start to reenter the blood circulation, poisoning the entire cat, the kidneys begin to suffer irreparable damage, the bladder is reaching explosion point. Boy does this cat hurt..... The cat is trying his best to pee but the best he can manage is squeezing that spiders web embedded with razor crystals down his teeny weeny narrow urethra causing an even more secure blockage.
When should these cats be taken to the vet????.... at the FIRST sign of urinary discomfort or problem. What can we do to reduce the risk of these cats getting blocked ????? .... keep your male cat slim, make them exercise and go out EVERY DAY, feed them Premium Cat food like Hills or Iams that guarantees the acidity and composition of the urine AND provide them with more than one litter tray AND ensure that the tray is CLEAN AND FRESH at all times .... if you had to visit a public toilet that has been used several times in the last few hours and not flushed yet .... would you use it or cross your legs and totter home????.......
A blocked cat is a DIRE EMERGENCY, they need to be seen NOW. As always prevention is better than cure and much cheaper too. And, as I always say to you, "You are what you eat". Don't wait for that 'time bum' to explode in your face or your wallet, get those fat middle aged executive cats out from behind their desks and newspaper, into their jogging pants and out on the Olympic track to take part in that great hurdle race of life. Yes the Athens Olympics is on the everyone except the Coro Street fans are happy.
Issue 8
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