I wrote last week about Meowzer's day trip to the vet due to her inability to urinate properly.
Turns out that the problem wasn't any one of the three possible outcomes that I listed. In fact, there is no medical cause at all to explain why she's having trouble.
So, she's been diagnosed with idiopathic cystitis.
The vet explained that typically it's stress induced, and when doing some reading later on, I discovered that most cats who have been diagnosed with this have a neurohormone imbalance that causes them to perceive their environment as more stressful than a normal cat would. And for whatever reason, this manifests itself as a urinary tract problem.
The treatment plan? 7 days of pain medication (specifically, buprenorphine) to allow her to handle larger volumes of water without pain. From there, we get to work on de-stressifying her life. A second litter box, a cat tree, a room to herself that the dog can't access, and a water fountain to encourage her to drink more. We can also try a plug in pheromone diffuser, but I'm holding off on that for now.
It's been pretty funny seeing her all doped up with insanely dilated pupils, and on Friday night she was doing the classic fall asleep and jerk awake routine.
Here's hoping that with the few changes we've made, she'll be a happy camper from here on out!
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