Feline Cystitis.

Question.
MY ten-month-old cat has been suffering bouts of cystitis. Her first trip to the vet involved a course of antibiotics and anti inflammatories but five days after the antibiotics course finished the problem started again. On the second trip to the vet she had antibiotic/anti inflammatory injections and more antibiotics. She also had an abdominal scan and no tumours or urinary stones were found. Two weeks later she had the symptoms again. I did not want to take her back to the vet (£18 for a five-minute consultation and that is without any drugs!) and started feeding her cranberry capsules, which also contain 100mg of vitamin C.

After just four days on 300mg she was back to normal but I ran out of tablets and the cystitis came back. She is now back on 300mg of Vitamin C a day and improving again. How long should she be on this high vitamin C dose? And why does the problem keep returning?

If I keep her urine acidic will she then develop calcium oxalate crystals? She is on a high-quality, low-mineral and low-protein dry cat food soaked in water.

Answer.
Cystitis (Feline Lower  Urinary Tract Disease, or FLUTD) is common in cats and can be very frustrating to treat because in most adult cats no specific cause can be found and treatment can only relieve the symptoms.
Your cat is affected at a relatively young age, and this indicates that investigations into other causes may help. While you may be able to temporarily correct the alkalinity of her urine by using urine acidifiers (such as vitamin C) it would be better to try to find out why it is happening and you are also right that if you over-acidify her urine you will encourage formation of calcium oxalate crystals or stones.

If your cat is on a balanced, maintenance cat food that is formulated to encourage production of an acidic urine then there should not be a dietary cause of the alkalinity. One possible cause would be a bacterial infection in the urine, so your vet may recommend further urine analysis and bacterial culture of a sample.

_{source Your CaT Mag.}