We are coming up on the one-year anniversary of Lucky’s surgery for bladder stones, a time when he was extremely ill, catheterized, and in both the emergency hospital and a specialty vet hospital for a week.
The surgery went great and removed the stones–but Lucky has continued to have urinary issues. He’s had several spells of urinating blood but multiple rounds of testing, x-rays and ultrasounds have shown no new stones (hooray!) and no sign of infection. He also continues to pee far too frequently–sometimes as much as five times in a 15-minute period. He likes the coolness of hard surfaces so, along with his litterboxes, we keep hard plastic trays for him to use, empty of litter.
The mystery of bloody pee continued, on and off, for months. Lucky would go for about four weeks then suddenly his urine was bloody. There were no changes to his diet, his routine, or anything in his life. Each time, the episodes cleared after a round of painkiller for a few days.
Just before Christmas on a bloody urine vet visit, our vet suggested an anti-depressant for Lucky. At this point, I felt reluctant to start medication–Lucky is the most relaxed cat we’ve ever had. If someone new walks in the house, Lucky’s there to greet them. If something falls, Lucky runs over to investigate. He is relaxed and calm about just about everything in his life.
BUT, the vet pointed out, he very well might be having stress over the fear of urinating. After so much pain last year, Lucky might be stressing over the possibility that it might hurt to urinate. That could also explain the frequent, small urinations (sometimes as small as quarter-sized).
We decided to give medication a try, and our vet gave us a prescription for Amitriptyline. Within two days of starting the medication (it takes a couple of weeks to built up in the system where you begin to see benefits), Lucky was a zombie. Instead of his usual playful self, dragging his wands all over the house and trying to get us to play at every opportunity, Lucky just sat and stared into space. We stopped the Amitriptyline and went back to the vet’s office.
Next, the vet recommended Prozac. Our vet was able to call in a prescription for fluoxetine, the generic name for Prozac, to our local compounding pharmacy. They made it into a transdermal gel, dispensed in syringes:
I measure the gel onto a gloved finger every night and the rub the medication into Lucky’s ears. Super simple! Lucky doesn’t mind it a bit and now comes over when I tell him “let’s do ears”…because he knows the administering of the medication will be followed by a wand play session.
Lucky’s now been on Prozac for over three months and, so far, the results have been great. Since he started the medication, he has had NO bloody urine. He continues to urinate more frequently than our other cats but the amount of urine per trip is greater, giving me hope that he’s relaxing in the litterbox.
I’ll keep you posted on Lucky’s progress with Prozac. Our hope is that after a year or so, Lucky will be able to eventually be weaned off the Prozac and will be over this fear of urinating. In the meantime, the medication really seems to be helping him to be his happy, active self once again!
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