I seriously think I might switch to Friskies. I’ve always bought high-quality fancy specialized food for my cats, and they’re all sensitive snowflakes, whilst every damn barn cat I know who’s eaten nothing but rats and Friskies is healthy and vigorous. I give up.
Cats under 10 years old almost never have a UTI. The key as others here have said is increase fluid intake by feeding canned food only. But cats MUST eat. They can develop hepatic lipidosis in as little as 72 hours with no food.
Females almost never block but a blocked male is a true medical emergency. Cosequan for Cats DOES help with inflammation but not all cats get great benefit. I am wary of ALL NSAIDS in cats especially metacam which at dog strengths can be deadly. Pain has to be managed and for my money BuprenexSR injection is the best way to go. With a blocked cat, I usually keep 3 days and give a dose on day 1 and 1/2 dose going out the door. It’s an expensive drug, around $200 for 5ml and you have to use special syringes so as not to waste but usual dosage is .1ml per 10 lb cat every 72 hours so if we charge $25 an injection (which is standard injection fee for all inexpensive products) it’s not higher math to see that the $200 will translate into $1000 profit and sending home oral pain meds will cost as much anyway. I just don’t understand why anyone would refuse to carry this medication.Unfortunately some of my collegues recognize that a bottle of almost anything else costs $10 per 100ml and give penicillin injections at $28 per twice a day for a week. I try to avoid injectable Baytril as most cats don’t need antibiotics anyway and it can cause tissue necrosis. Baytril has been the go to drug for FLUTD for so long that the experts on VIN now recommend clavamox instead and ONLY if there’s a documented UTI. Submucosal buprenex will also relieve pain but it really needs to come from a good compounding pharmacy so you only have to give your cat .1ml a dose. Try giving a whole ml and watch it go everywhere.
