RE: Need advice

[Hideyo Yamamoto]

Hi, Michelle – as you may know already, most of the time, bladder infection is not bacterial related, therefore, the antibiotics may suppress the symptoms for a while while they are on it.. but usually comes back when you stop giving the antibiotics as it does not treat the problem  – I had a very similar experience with my FIV boy, Papa.. no matter what type of antibiotics I gave him…. The symptoms will always come back.. he has a pure blood in urine.. and I was so very scared..he would go to a litter box every two minutes.. and nothing comes out except blood..   Here’s what I suggest.. and this is what worked on Papa,, and I and papa never have to worry about his bladder problem again.. get either D-L or L methionine and give her 500 mg every day… it helps acidifies the urine (I am assuming that struvite is caused by alkali one)..and the meantime give her 100 mg or 150 fluids every day, it helps her flush out the urine… I tried everything.. and this is the only thing it worked on Papa…   As for Patches, could you wait until you feel that it is absolutely necessary?  Again, I am very conservative when coming to anesthesia on either old or too young or immune compromised animals… I lost one due to the anethasia and I almost lost two.. and these are the animals that the vet had assured me that there was nothing to worry about.. when balancing the benefit and risks, I have to say that you wait.. you can always do so.. but if you have a doubt.. wait until you really see the need.. Again, I am also conservative when coming to the dental work.. I feel (and my holistic vet also) over emphasize the need for the dental work.. But I just have to share it.. because I do have very bad experiences…   Hideyo   From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, September 11, 2005 9:34 AM To: felvtalk@felineleukemia.org Subject: Need advice   Hi all.  As you know, I moved to NJ and so now am dealing with all new vets.  Lucy had a bladder stone (struvite) in the spring and was on clavamox and S/D until her symptoms went away and the x-ray showed no more stone. She got symptoms again a few weeks ago. I switched her to S/D again and put her on Clavamox and, when I ran out, Amoxi.  I then got a house call vet with an association with a local vet office, who did x-rays and saw nothing. I i nsisted it was probably a bladder stone and she insisted it wasn't, and from the urinalysis she said there is a bad UTI and the amoxi is not doing anything and we need to to a sterile sample via needle and a bacteria-specific screen.  I then got an ultrasound of Lucy and, low and behold, there is a cluster of small stones. So she is back on the S/D with a follow-up ultrasound scheduled for a month from now to see if the are dissolving or need to be surgically removed.  In the meantime, the vet said to take her off antibiotics for a week in order to be able to do a bacteria-specific screen.  So I took her off two days ago, and now she is peeing frequently again and there is more and brighter blood in her urine.   The vet had said that if I do not want to wait a week to do the screen, that I can just put her on Baytril and see if it works. The downside is that if it does not it narrows the range of other antibiotics that can be tried, because I guess it can make her resistant to some of them.  And according to the vet this means risk of superinfection.  But I also do not want her to be really uncomfortable and let an infection rage out of control for a whole week.  So I am inclined to just put her on the baytril and if that does not work put her back on Clavamox which was at least doing something even if not getting rid of the infection, and see if the S/D helps in the meantime. But I really am not sure about this because risk of superinfection sounds scary. I left a message for the vet today asking if we can do the urine sample tomorrow with her being off antibiotics for only 3 days and just see if it says something helpful.  I have not heard back yet. I want to know your opinions.Lucy is positive.   On a similar note, this same vet says I need to bring Patches to a dentist to get her two broken canines removed.  They have been broken since she came to me about 3 years ago. She is positive and probably about 5 years old. I have read, and was told by the vet, that broken canines are like wicks for bacteria, which can injure the kidneys, heart, and liver and also become abcessed, and thus they need to be removed. But I also know that when Ginger, who is positive, got 10 teeth removed, she got really sick with a bad URI which took weeks to heal and she was not eating or anything, had to be syringe-fed, etc. I am very glad I got Ginger's teeth out, of course, because the pain from them had made her stop eating. But Patches, as of now, does not seem to be affected by the broken teeth. It is not always possible to tell, of course, until the pain overwhelms them so that they stop eating. And she does overgroom, which could be a symptom of pain I guess. I am planning on taking her to the dentist, I think, for an eval, but I am sure the dentist will probably say the teeth need to come out. The issue with me is that yes, I would get them out if Patches were negative, but she is a 5 year old positive who has done pretty well thus far and I feel like I am really taking a gamble with her virus if I put her through oral surgery.  What do you think?   Thanks, Michelle