Dr Kavi­ta Per­sad

When was the last time you paid at­ten­tion to your cat’s uri­na­tion habits? Fe­line Low­er Uri­nary Tract Dis­ease (of­ten termed FLUTD) is an um­brel­la term used to de­scribe a group of prob­lems as­so­ci­at­ed with in­flam­ma­tion and ir­ri­ta­tion of the low­er uri­nary tract in cats. Clin­i­cal signs an own­er might no­tice with their cat ex­pe­ri­enc­ing FLUTD of­ten in­clude strain­ing to uri­nate, in­creased fre­quen­cy of uri­na­tion in small amounts, blood-tinged urine, or even uri­nat­ing in un­usu­al places out­side the lit­ter box.

Oth­er signs in­clude cry­ing out while uri­nat­ing, con­sis­tent­ly lick­ing their gen­i­tal area, or be­hav­iour­al changes such as rest­less­ness and re­fus­ing to eat.

Cats of any age, breed or sex may be af­fect­ed; how­ev­er, FLUTD is of­ten seen in male, neutered, mid­dle-aged, over­weight cats who get lit­tle to no ex­er­cise. Cats that are al­so re­strict­ed to in­doors and pri­mar­i­ly on a dry food di­et are al­so af­fect­ed.

So, what ex­act­ly is the cause of FLUTD? Un­for­tu­nate­ly, the most com­mon cause, which ac­counts for at least 50% of cas­es seen, is of an id­io­path­ic (un­known) cause, mak­ing di­ag­no­sis some­times dif­fi­cult. Po­ten­tial stres­sors such as changes in rou­tine, mov­ing to a new home or liv­ing in a mul­ti-cat house­hold may con­tribute to this. Oth­er caus­es of FLUTD in­clude ure­thral ob­struc­tion caused by uri­nary stones or ure­thral plugs, uri­nary tract in­fec­tions, anatom­i­cal de­fects or even can­cer.

Di­ag­nos­ing FLUTD may be dif­fi­cult, as it in­volves a com­bi­na­tion of signs that re­quire fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion to de­ter­mine the un­der­ly­ing cause. A vet­eri­nar­i­an must first ob­tain a prop­er his­to­ry of the cat from its own­er, per­form a thor­ough phys­i­cal ex­am­i­na­tion and then pro­ceed with fur­ther di­ag­nos­tic tests. These may in­clude uri­nal­y­sis, x-rays and blood tests. As men­tioned be­fore, the spe­cif­ic cause may not be found even af­ter a prop­er di­ag­nos­tic eval­u­a­tion.

Ure­thral ob­struc­tion or block­age is un­doubt­ed­ly the most se­ri­ous and po­ten­tial­ly life-threat­en­ing cause of FLUTD. I must em­pha­sise that if a cat is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing par­tial or to­tal ob­struc­tion from void­ing urine, THIS IS AN EMER­GENCY AND RE­QUIRES IM­ME­DI­ATE VET­ERI­NARY CARE. Uri­nary stones and ure­thral plugs (formed from min­er­als, cells and mu­cus) of­ten cause this ob­struc­tion. When a cat’s ure­thra is com­plete­ly blocked, urine can­not be void­ed, and it be­gins back­ing up in­to the kid­neys, lead­ing to fail­ure, build-up of tox­ins in the blood, elec­trolyte im­bal­ance, and even death in as lit­tle as 24 to 48 hours. A vet­eri­nar­i­an will se­date the pa­tient and dis­lodge the ob­struc­tion by plac­ing a uri­nary catheter in­to the cat’s ure­thra and flush­ing with ster­ile so­lu­tion. De­hy­dra­tion and flu­id im­bal­ances are of­ten cor­rect­ed, as well as med­ica­tion to man­age the pain. De­pend­ing on the cause, a pre­scrip­tion di­et along with oth­er med­ica­tion may al­so be rec­om­mend­ed to make the cat com­fort­able.

The treat­ment of FLUTD specif­i­cal­ly de­pends on the cause, as cats may ex­pe­ri­ence one or re­cur­rent episodes of the con­di­tion. Some steps may be tak­en to help re­duce the fre­quen­cy of at­tacks and sever­i­ty if it re­oc­curs. These may in­clude pro­vid­ing fresh, clean wa­ter at all times to en­cour­age drink­ing, en­cour­ag­ing ex­er­cise through play, pro­vid­ing an ad­e­quate num­ber of lit­ter box­es, min­imis­ing ma­jor changes in rou­tine and man­ag­ing weight.

For cats with a his­to­ry of uri­nary or blad­der stones, pro­vid­ing a spe­cif­ic pre­scrip­tion di­et as rec­om­mend­ed by your vet­eri­nar­i­an is re­quired. Re­mem­ber, ear­ly recog­ni­tion of uri­nary signs can make a dif­fer­ence be­tween a sim­ple treat­ment and a life-threat­en­ing emer­gency.

Dr Kavi­ta Per­sad (Hons) is a vet­eri­nar­i­an at Lu­na Light Vet­eri­nary Clin­ic. She is com­mit­ted to pre­ven­tive health­care, client ed­u­ca­tion, and com­pas­sion­ate vet­eri­nary med­i­cine.

Face­book - Lu­na Light Vet­eri­nary Ser­vices

In­sta­gram - lu­nalightvet

Email lu­nalightvet@gmail.com