Feline Interstitial Cystitis

[GraceLikeRain]

Has anyone else navigated FIC? Cat had one prior incident treated more like a UTI that resolved quickly with meticam and an antibiotic shot. This time we are robustly into day 9 of this second round with no end in sight.

As background, cat is an indoor feral. At night she is very sweet and trusting but from sun up to sun down she is visible in the house but cannot be handled without significant (and stressful) corralling and eventually cornering. She’s 12 and been inside since 6 months. I have a long track record of bringing around ferals but she’s just built differently.

Intial treatment this time was meticam and a topical opioid. She had a horrific reaction to the topical and spent 72+ hours completely zonked and panicked. It took three people, deassembling a bed, and 45 minutes to finally catch her on day 3. Cystocentesis showed no bacteria, gave more sub Q fluids, sent me home with 3 days worth of additional meticam plus 10 days of gabapentin.

She is so distrustful of me at this point that it takes very careful monitoring of my own body language at meals and not crowding to get the gabapentin into her sytem and the meticam takes timing with bedtime.

She is still in and out of the litterbox non stop and clearly uncomfortable.

The house has been filled with Feliway plug ins, I’m playing down the rest of the cats to keep their energy low, working from home to ensure that dynamic stay calm and she doesn’t get picked on, etc.

What else should I be doing? Do I drag her through another trapping for the vet? What do I push for next? She is a really bad patient and my promise to her was that I’d give her a low stress indoor feral life. This should be completely treatable but her disposition feels like a complicating factor.

[Simkie]

Given how you describe her, stress may definitely be a significant contributor. All of your efforts to keep things low stress might still not be enough for her. Is it at all possible to get her on an anti anxiety med? They can be given with food, or applied transdermally to the inside of the ear flap (or pilled, but that sounds like it might be the toughest way to go?) Some of them don’t even need to be given daily.

If antibiotics knocked this back the first time, too, there might still be an infection despite the negative cysto. Apparently, sometimes they can have an infection up in the kidneys that doesn’t travel down to the bladder. Pee looks clean, but there’s still something brewing.

Cosequin (or similar) might also be something to add. It soothes the lining of the bladder.

Good luck, pee issues are just the worst

[OzarksRider]

I think the fact that she is feral is a big, big clue that stress is causing the FIC. Not all cats can adjust to being indoors, and maybe she is one of those. I once had a cat like that. I let him out during the day but kept him in at night, thinking that being out half the time would be enough. It wasn’t. For the first seven years of his life he had episodes of FIC, sometimes to the point that he was peeing blood. I finally started letting him out when he wanted to go, even at night, and the FIC episodes completely stopped.

Can you let your cat out at all? Or if not, can you re-home her to someone who needs a barn cat? She’s telling you she’s miserable, and letting her out may be the only solution.

[GraceLikeRain]

@OzarksRider

I think the fact that she is feral is a big, big clue that stress is causing the FIC. Not all cats can adjust to being indoors, and maybe she is one of those.

[…]

Can you let your cat out at all? Or if not, can you re-home her to someone who needs a barn cat? She’s telling you she’s miserable, and letting her out may be the only solution

She’s 10.5 and been inside since she was six months old so I’m very hesitant to see 2 FIC episodes in 10 years as a sign she is miserable indoors. I could leave the front door wide open all day and she wouldn’t try to leave. She has 24/7 access to a screened in porch. While she enjoys time outside, she has no desire to stay outside.

My other male is doing some excessive licking (recent thread) and just started a trial of Prozac. Between my own health issues, erratic schedule because of DH traveling, 4 am mornings for horse (see stepped on clip thread), and more there’s been a lot of human stress and inconsistency. She and my male are the most sensitive in the house so im hopeful that if I can get the humans sorted out that she won’t be inclined to have a future episode.

As of this evening the other four in the house have pheromone collars on and cosequin is being overnighted. Im going to talk with my vet about putting her on Prozac as well for a trial.