Feeling helpless with too many UTIs

[katherinerose]

I've had my little girl for a little over a year now. I rescued her at the hands of a few ladies who I over heard were trying to "get her run over by a car." I immediately took her from them she was roughly 3 weeks old, just barely walking at the time. I had every intention of getting her healthy and giving her up but after a lot of very horrible vet appointments I finally found a vet that was able to tell us the issues we were having were from incontinence. We went from having a UTI about once a month, when I first had her, to now about once every 3-4 months. I still feel like this is a lot for her, and was wondering what other people may experience with some of their kitties? My vet has assured me I am expressing her correctly, and I try my hardest to express her at least every 6 hours. It just seems like we can't beat these UTIs. I feel so bad for my little one and feel like I'm failing her. Even with a "healthy bladder" when she is free from infection she still tends to dribble, especially when excited or playful, and that sometimes leads to a diaper rash. Thankfully, and sometimes not so thankfully, she loves baths, and will sit in them until I force her to get out, so we are able to keep her pretty cleanly with no much issue. I just feel she shouldn't be having this much of an issue with UTIs and I don't know if there is anything different I can be doing for her or if anyone has anymore tips for me on this situation.

[Bobbie]

Do you express her when you take her out of the bath? It could be bacteria is getting in through the water and expressing right away helps prevent that.

[CarolC]

I am still thinking about this and may post something else later if something occurs to me. One question would be, do you have her spayed yet? When I first got my chihuahua, she was not spayed and she got a UTI every time she went into season. With my dog, that would be about twice a year, but with cats the heat cycle is much more frequent. Here is an article about it. I understand possible hesitation to spay a pet your are expressing, but I'm just explaining what happened with us. A couple of us here have had to do this and it worked out OK. The vet can put the incision higher up toward the ribs and use extra sutures if needed, knowing you are going to be expressing.

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/pic/article.cfm?aid=2904

The other thing is, are you expressing one-handed or two-handed or how are you doing it? If you do it one-handed (at least the way I do it this works) you will know beyond a shadow of a doubt if she is empty. With the one-handed method you enclose the whole bladder in your hand and squeeze it empty. I apologize for the following description, I don't smoke, but the best description I can give is, it's like crushing a empty cigarette pack in your hand. I hope that gives the picture. If you are doing it two-handed, I have seen that done successfully but I would never be sure my pet was empty doing it that way, so if you have a pet small enough to do it one-handed I prefer that. Really the method doesn't matter as long as you get her empty, it's just that one-handed you can feel the size of the bladder nearly 360 degrees around so you know.