Urinary Tract Disorders in Cats

A friend of mine had a male cat who was on Iams food and frequently had urinary issues. The vet's recommendations sort of helped, but didn't resolve the problem last I heard. However, I learned that in some cats (males only if I remember right) the cords/bits that hold the organs in place when they are developing in the womb don't break down like they should. It causes the bladder to not empty completely. A simple surgery fixes the problem.

Amazing the ACV worked! I applied a very wet paper towel soaked with the ACV to her hindquarter like someone suggested. She licked it up and in less than 30 minutes she urinated. I highly recommend this remedy! My cat (mouse) and I thank you all for suggesting this wonderful remedy!

I used 1/2 teaspoon regular apple cider vinegar to 2 cups water for 2 years now and no more UTI. Also one half pill vitamin C 500 mg is good for shiny coat and preventing other problems. Just crush it and put in wet catfood gravy.

Well, after my Catzilla (trust me, she's totally earned her name) started peeing all over my computer room, all over any loose clothing, boxes, carpet and anywhere else soft, I knew something was amiss. I, too, just like most of the people on this site, cannot afford vet bills or even a check up (I can't even get myself to the dentist as it is).

She started this behavior last week and after my wife and I had given her two capsules of cranberry extract with a 5 ml water chaser every day, she seemed to improve by week's end. But, a couple of days ago she started back again, same behavior. We started back with the cranberry as the wife believed this to be a better solution at the moment. I knew about this site last week and kept trying to remember to buy some organic ACV but would keep forgetting.

So, yesterday, I got some org. ACV and administered 1/4 tsp with 1/2 tsp of water. She's seemed on again, off again in her recovery. She was crying but her crying isn't nearly as bad. Ups and downs, really. I just gave her some more cranberry with water and she's laying down near the door on the carpet. Sometimes, she licks her "spot" but then she stops after a little while. I've been trying to give her at least two doses of the ACV a day. I know I can't expect miracles overnight, as most of you have received but I'm really frustrated and not sure what to do. We've decided by Thursday, if she isn't better, we're taking her in. Any pointers from those who have had success with the ACV I can use to try and expedite Zilla's recovery?

Thank you so much for your help. I just want Catzilla better. She's just so miserable lately.

Hello again! I have come here to testify!! :) After three days of worrying and hard work (and a bigger dose of ACV last night) I am pleas-- no, ECSTATIC (!) to report that my Catzila is 110% better. She's purring, and rubbing me with her tail (blech!)... and ignoring me... JUST like a cat. ;P

I think I misread the tsp to ml chart at a website I visited so instead of a decent dose to "kick it", this UTI just dragged on for the poor little thing. But, on a whim, I gave her a little over 2 ml with 5 ml of water in a syringe and now, I can see the pee stains in her cat box, not bloody, just... wet (sorry for the graphic nature of this post) I just need to shout it from the rooftops that ACV does, indeed, work. So, to those of you struggling and worrying about using this stuff, just trust me, you WILL get results. Just be patient.

I'm not giving her any this morning but I plan on it this afternoon before I go off to my second job. She's been through enough this week. One final note, and I pray I don't get flack for this. My wife had me crush up a non-prescription strength pain medication (it turns pee orange and helps you see if the kitty is peeing anywhere) to help alleviate the pain for Miss Kitty and it seemed to help. Thing is... she did pee more in the room but at least we got to tell if everything we were doing to help her worked or not. Now my left index finger and thumb are bright orange from the stain (it does wear off).

So, 2 ml of ACV to 5 ml of H2O in a syringe, cranberry extract and a lot of love -- a great combination! Your cat may fight you which is why you have to get right behind him/her and almost force feed them. Yup, they will drool and foam at the mouth and all that nastiness but it's only temporary. Thanks for letting me run off at the fingers, y'all. I'm just a happy lil' clam now that I got my Zillas back. Good luck with your efforts!

WORKED TEMPORARILY

Hi. I'm returning to this site to voice my complete disappointment in ACV and its effects on MY cat. Catzilla's infection has come back, worse than before now. I've tried 2 ml to 3 ml of Water twice a day for the past couple of days and even with cranberry extract (two capsule a day), nothing is working. She's puking her food up and peeing everywhere again, even so much as (from what I could tell) defecating a bit on the wall (I only saw three small spots on the wall, nothing too gross). I've found blood in her urine when she pees on things so worse has finally come to worse. I must now take whatever money I can and put it toward her vet bill, which I'm sure is going to be through the roof. I was hoping it wouldn't come to this but I have no other choice. Very very disappointed in this remedy. ACV just didn't work for me. Good luck, everyone else. I hope your kitties get better.

What worked for me:
My healthy lean male cat of 3 years started showing signs of serious bladder blockage just a few days ago. We have fed him a mix of newman's own organic cat food half dry/ half wet, but he is a crunchy food addict so would eat mostly the dry and only the wet when really hungry. He was lean and healthy so we didn't worry much about this then. He also doesn't seem to drink from his water bowl all that often. He started acting really lethargic and then noticed him doing the litterbox dance, going in and out without peeing much if at all, this was at night and our vet was closed. I did research online and worried about the dangers of full blockage and the need to take the cat in asap, but the emergency vet charges big markups, so we decided to wait til morning for our regular vet as long as he continued to show signs of at least getting a few drops of urine out on most of his litterbox trips.

We also started giving him oral doses of diluted raw apple cider vinegar mixed with a "d-mannose" supplement every few hours using one of those plastic syringe squirter things you can get at a pharmacy. I had read many testimonials online about people having success with this issue by supplementing the vinegar, seemingly as it would help to quickly drop the urine ph. The "d-mannose" is the main ingredient in cranberry juice that helps with uti, and thought that if he had any bacterial uti issues this would help and couldn't hurt.

So to be safe I stayed up all night observing him and giving him the doses every few hours and in the morning just before we were to take him into the vet we noticed he went to the litterbox and had a noticeably larger urine amount which was a relief so we decided to hold off on the vet and keep up the doses. We also cut out dry food and gave him wet food with broth or distilled water and microwaved it a little so it was a little warm, he lapped up the broth and ate a little, towards the of the evening he started peeing larger and larger amounts and started to regain his energy and playfulness and didn't seem to be in discomfort anymore.

The next day he seemed fully back to normal, though we are continuing to give him one dose of Apple Cider Vinegar and d-mannose and will continue to give him only wet food with added water or broth heating it up slightly as he seems to prefer. If most of these bladder blockage problems are caused by dry food and grain causing higher pH than ideal in the urine it makes sense that the apple cider vinegar supplement would help by quickly lowering the pH in the urine. Plus it is super cheap, and so far has worked a miracle for us. You can google this remedy to find out more.

Our dose was 1/4 teaspoon acv(vinegar) mixed with 1 teaspoon distilled water with 1/8 teaspoon "d-mannose" powder per dose. To give it orally my gf or myself would hold the cat and lift his scruff so he couldn't move his head much while the other person would squirt the liquid in the back of his mouth. Now that he is back to full energy this is getting harder as he resists more so I decided to squirt it and lightly rub it in on his side when he was laying down cleaning himself and he happily lapped it up. Worth a try especially for those who are worried about huge vet bills.

My male cat is 11 yrs old and was recently diagnosed with Diabetes and I have been having a problem with him leaking urine for about 2 yrs. Antibiotics make him very sick and only seem to help while he is taking the antibiotics. He doesn't have a problem with the litter box when he has a recent insulin shot, but when his blood sugar rises he has issues with leaking large puddles. He also still drinks large amounts of water. He has had bad UTI's in the past, not sure if this is diabetes related. I am starting him on the ACV treatment today to see if it helps. Does anyone have advice for me regarding diabetic cats and UTI's? I would really appreciate any advice. Thank you in advance! Spice's Mom

Hi there, I was so happy and thankful to read this thread; some years ago I lost my first cat to the dreaded crystals. It devastated me. After many years, I was asked to take in an abandond cat (now 3yrs old) to save his life, and 2 days ago he was diagnosed with said crystals. I was so scared. The vet was really nice and helpful, but after catheterising only gave me anti inflammatories and Hills perscription as further treatment. The hills bix list brewers rice as their key ingredient, and the wet food pork by-product, neither of which thrilled me, but anything for him to get better! However, on doing a bit of research I find that dry food I. E. the biscuits are possibly part of the problem - we fed him expensive store bought bix for breakfast and snacks prior to the crystals, so I was really concerned to be feeding him these to make him better.

Did not know anything about ACV before finding this page, wasnt even sure if you could get this 'mother' stuff here in Aotearoa New Zealand, but yay, yes I can. So have just bought some and will get started now - so good luck to us, and thankyou thankyou to all the people who take the time to post here! Kia ora.

I have a 5 month old kitten who when I took to the vet they gave a shot and medicine for a UTI. They tried to take a urine sample but couldn't and now he is not very happy and seems to be in pain. Is this normal for them to be sore after they tried to do this? Also can I add the ACV to his food and water along with continuing the antibiotics? We have him in our guest room right now because he was going all over the house. It wasn't a lot but he was going on soft surfaces and dribbling here and there.

We have a male cat who developed urinary crystals and after a $1,000 vet bill, I was forced to look for a homeopathic, inexpensive alternative. When he developed it again, I started giving him about 1/2 teaspoon of organic apple cider vinegar (ACV) in some warm water with his dry food every morning and the urinary crystals completely disappeared in a day or two. If your cat won't eat the food, try putting less ACV in the warm water at first and gradually build up the amount. I also try to give him some wet food a few times a week (I wish I could only give him wet food, but it is far more expensive). Now I give this to each of my cats daily and they are completely healthy.

Female kitty peed on herself:

I am concerned about my female kitty Mora, she is about two years old. We are in the middle of switching her to a more natural diet. She was on Solid Gold's Indigo Moon formula, which it grain free, but I had wanted to switch her and my male to a raw diet. The male seems to have switched fine. It has been about a week with the raw only. Right now we are struggling, as she only wants to eat the kibbles. I have it put up in a spare bedroom. I have been feeding her a freeze dried Venison formula, and when I think they may eat it, some raw chicken that was frozen in a tube. I feed them both about an ounce, at first and if they are still hungry I will warm up more. I do not heat in the microwave. Well now that I have gotten through the current situation, my main concern. This morning they were hungry and I was defrosting some raw and it would be a while before I could feed them. So I gave both of them a treat. It was a cranberry treat that they have both eaten for over a year. Shortly after that I saw her walking around the house with a wet bottom. I went to dry her off and noticed it was urine. I cleaned her with a damp washcloth, she wasn't too happy, but not as upset as when I cleaned her bottom when she got poo on it. So I don't think she is feeling to spunky. I went to look up on line females peeing on themselves and noticed a really rancid cat pee smell. I went to the littler box, and it wasn't there, she had peed in a tent that I had put up for them in the corner. It was thicker than normal and very yellow. It had also got part on the carpet. So now I think she had been going to hid in her tent cause she didn't feel good and ended up peeing with out knowing it. What makes this more upsetting is yesterday she was great, and we played all day! The urine smell isn't normal, it is very stinky, I am not sure how to describe it but it isn't like a strong pee smell, it is just strong and stinky, but still pee like. Has any one else had this same thing happen? I don't have a regular vet, and I don't want to deal with finding one that won't think I am a nut case with the raw food.

Hi: I don't have cats but 2 small dogs. I have been told to fast them for 1 day anytime i switch over to raw. If for example we go on holidays and have to drive. I do not pack raw, they eat dry for that time. Regarding your female cat, I have a trick that I use. I have 2 miniature pinchers that have been on raw most of their lives. When I have an issue, I feed them live yogurt that I have cultured myself with milk and acidophilis. They get this until problem resolves itself.

Hope this helps,
Mary

Update on my fur baby Mora,

I mixed together 1 tablespoon of organic ACV with 1/3 cup filtered tap water. I gave my kitty 2 tsp by syringe 2 times a day. At first she was ok with it, which isn't my kitty, She then slept for a couple of hours and ate. She peed in the litter box one more stinky pee before bed. So bad I had to empty it for the second time that day. In the morning she put up some fight with the ACV mix, but I got it in her :)~ She ate some no grain canned food and was frisky for a while then slept most the day. That night I gave her one more dose and I had to chase her and got part of it on the wall, so she must be feeling better. I haven't noticed the stink, and she is much friskier. I will try the fast when I start her on raw again, see if that keeps her from getting too dehydrated in her protest!

Thank you for the information. I run an animal rescue shelter, more for seniors and cats with behavior issues. one of my cats was squatting to pee every few minutes. He was drinking a lot of water, but still seemed to be straining. He has lost a lot of weight and my Vet feels he may have kidney disease. I have not done blood work as I have seen this many, many times. I will try the Apple Cider Vinegar and post again.

Thank you for the information. I run an animal rescue shelter, more for seniors and cats with behavior issues. one of my cats was squatting to pee every few minutes. He was drinking a lot of water, but still seemed to be straining. He has lost a lot of weight and my Vet feels he may have kidney disease. I have not done blood work as I have seen this many, many times. I will try the Apple Cider Vinegar and post again.

I used apple cider vinegar to cure my cat's urinary blockage after a 1500 dollar visit to the vet the first time this occured. A neighbor suggested trying a home remedy. I found this web site and learned about apple cider vinegar to cure cat's of urinary blockage.I had a syringe from the vet for giving my cat water to help him swallow his medicine I used this 6 militer syringe to give my cat ACV BY MIXING IT WITH ONE CUP OF WATER AND GIVING HIM 1FULL syringe in the morning and 1 at night the 1st 3 days then 1/2 a teespoon of ACV to his water dish which holds 2 cups.

I am pleased to report that MAX my male cat is doing fine and is urinating normally now will keep him on this for the rest of his life. my thanks to Earth clinic

Outstanding information on this site.

Why isn't Apple Cider Vinegar a staple in every household? Truly a life changing remedy the doctors sure don't tell you about. Thanks a million to everyone who took the time to provide VALUABLE information on this site. I'm using it now for my cat who almost died from crystals...a urinary blockage. The vet wanted to perform a painful $1,500 surgery, but the ACV is doing the trick to regulate his PH levels. Unbelievable...

I am reading about the ACV helping kitties with crystals. I've spent thousands of dollars on my kitty, usually rushing him to the vets and having him stay about 3 days. This is tough on all of us. He only eats specially ordered wet vet food, yet he still gets sick and I have to watch him all the time. What is the dosage for the kitties who have crystals? It would be a relief to finally get this under control. He has lost alot of weight since he can no longer eat grains. I am now retired and now longer have the financial resources I did, so I need better solutions.

Apple Cider Vinegar Regarding ACV and urinary blockage in cats, how do you administer it to kitty?

I cured one of my tomcats with apple cider vinegar earlier this year. Just spent $100 dollars to treat a second cat who developed a sudden complete blockage. Someone mentioned on a different thread here (bladder problems in cats) to PUT THE AVC ON THEIR PAWS and let them lick it off. This is a much more efficient way to treat than trying to administer with a syringe. I am going to start doing this regularly to prevent future problems. Earth Clinic is WONDERFUL!

I haven't seen anybody mention putting some ACV in the drinking water of your feline friend. Thats what we have done for all of our pets and it works great for cats that have urinary problems.

As far as the amount, you will have to experiment with how much they will tolerate.... start with a teaspoon in a bowl of water and increase from there.

Avoid feeding kitty with urinary track issues foods with any ash content in it. especially if you have a Simase kitty who seem to be more prone to urinary problems than other breeds.

Wile Ash is not the only cause of urinary problems it is a major contributing factor of flare ups and infections since the ash blocks the urinary track and makes it harder and very painful to pee.

You may be suprised how many dry and [wet] canned foods have a very high content of ash in them. The list of ingredients begin's with the highest amount contained in the food to the least amount on the bottom of the list.

hope this helps some. Marcella

FLUTD and apple cider vinegar - I was actually wondering what the measurements were for the cats and how it was given I have a cat 4 yrs old that has struvite crytalls and keeps getting them which means vet which means unhappy kitty. His last bout #4, he was peeing all over our new house. I had a vet that was all over the place about taking care of him, so I would like to try this remedy. They want to keep him on amitryiptaline to see if that would help. Any thoughts would be greatly apprecited! Thanks for the time.

Hi My name is Joy, i have a 2 and a half year old female doberman that was spayed about a month and a half ago. Two weeks later i have realised that she seems to have a weak bladder. I wake up in the mornings drenched in what seems to be water. It also almost has a weird smell.. cant put my finger on it but almost a weak blood smell but its clear water. I am not sure if it is urine.. sure doesnt smell like it. I am terrified. I phoned my vet who just told me very relaxed that it is a lifelong problem and she would need to take pills every day. I almost fainted when i heard that.. i came across your article on ACV and bought some last night. I fed it to her with some yogurt... she seemed to like it. I am still very worried about her.. but over here we have vet's that only want your money and your dogs best interest comes last. Can anyone please tell me what you think of the ACV and if it really works? Thanks

Himalayan salt. My female cat has had severe bladder problems for over 2 years. Antibiotics helped a little bit but it always came back. She has dry food for PH-balance but that did not help either. I tried vitC, cranberry and ACV but she does not want that, even hidden in food she really loves. 'About a year ago I put a little bit of Himalayan salt in the water, initially for my dog who has arthritis. Well she still has (the dog) but my cat drinks from that water too (she loves it) and has not had any bladder problems since. I still also give her the food for PH balance.

I'm seeking a cure, as well as preventative measures for urinary blockage in male cats. My cat was eating a wet food that has been discontinued along with his dry food. He refuses to eat any other brand of wet food. He developed urinary blockage from lack of wet food. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

In response to Camille from Pleasant Valley, New York It's very important to know WHAT kind of crystals are causing the blockage. My cat had Struvite crystals from being to alkaline. I stoped all free choice dry food - this causes the body to become alkaline. I now feed him a quality GRAIN FREE cat food. I hide one 250mg vitC and add a spoonfull of turkey and sweet potatoe babyfood (for extra moisture) to the top of all of it. 3 days a week I add an 1/8 of a teaspoon of a cranberry supplement.Any time I notice a lack of pee in his litter box I drain a can of tuna or chicken into a cup and mix with filtered or bottled water (He LOVES this!!) to up his water intake. Knock on wood he has been crystal free now for 2 years!! But you have to know what his Ph is and what kind of crystals he has before you try this! Good Luck!!

Hi, my cat is very sick all the time. Can you please tell me what kind of cranberry extract do you use and how do you meger 6 drops and how many times per day do you give your cat the extract? Thank you in advance.