The Preventive Vet
Welcome to the third, and final, installment of this blog series on feline urethral obstruction… Part 3 - ‘Be Preventive’. In this post I’ll highlight the things you need to know and the steps you should take to prevent an occurrence (or recurrence) of this condition.
If you missed the first two installments in the blog series, click the respective hyperlinks here to read them… Part 1 - ‘Be Aware’, and Part 2 - ‘Be Prepared’.
Additionally, and as an aside, if you’ve ever had a cat suffer from a urethral obstruction I’d greatly appreciate it if you would take a few minutes to complete the online survey I created on SurveyMonkey. The survey can be found by clicking here, its completely anonymous and only takes a few minutes to complete. Thanks in advance for your time.
And so, without further ado, lets talk about the things you need to know and do to decrease your cat’s risk for urethral obstruction…
In the first post of this series I covered the ‘what’ of urethral obstruction. In this post I’ll be detailing the things you should know to be prepared for in the event of a urethral obstruction. Hopefully you’ll never need this information, but as with most things in life, its best to have it and know its here if you do. After all, when it comes to feline urethral obstruction, your cat’s life is truly at stake.
I’ve got plenty of data from the various veterinary hospitals I’ve worked in over the years and there is good published data about the risk factors for feline urethral obstruction. But what I’m trying to do here is to get a ‘real world’ appreciation of pet owner’s experiences with feline urethral obstruction. If you’ve ever had a cat that has suffered a urinary obstruction, please take a minute to take this online survey. Thank you. Together we can help promote the message of awareness, preparedness, and prevention!
Don’t forget to check out my recent blog posts on feline urethral obstruction. The first installment of the series can be found here.
Thank you!
MORE Good Day Oregon segment on cat urinary health and problems. Every cat owner should know this stuff… help spread it around. And don’t forget about the blog series I’m doing right now on feline urethral obstruction… frustrating and deadly stuff! First post in the series went on the blog today.
Let me start by saying this… A cat that cannot pee is a cat that’s going to die, unless appropriate veterinary medical care is obtained immediately. Urethral obstruction is a very severe, very acute, very critical medical emergency.
If you take nothing else from this initial installment in my blog series about feline urethral obstruction, I hope you will at least appreciate the importance of being able to promptly recognize this common pet emergency. The second and third installments will deal with ‘what to do’ in the event of a urethral obstruction and the steps you should take to minimize its likelihood or prevent it all together, respectively.
If you’ve come to this post after having typed “help my cat can’t pee” (or something along those lines) into the search field of your favorite search engine… stop reading, step away from the computer and take your cat to the vet immediately. There are no safe and effective first aid steps which you can, or should, perform at home for a blocked cat. If they are to have any hope of survival, they must receive appropriate medical treatment at once. Then, only when your cat is safely at the vet and treatment has been initiated, come back to this series of blog posts to learn what you might expect and what you should do to prevent another episode from happening in the future.
Hopefully you’ve come to this post prior to your cat becoming blocked. If so, I encourage you to read on so that you can avoid ever having to deal with the costs, frustrations, and potential heartbreak of having a cat with a urethral obstruction.
Did you know that November is National Diabetes Awareness Month? Yup, one month out of every year… diabetes gets the spotlight. Given the importance of this disease and the debilitation it can cause, you’d think it would at least deserve a month with 31 days. But I guess it could be worse, it could be in February. Besides, November is probably a very appropriate month - given that it comes right after Halloween, includes the holiday most often associated with overeating, and precedes the month with the over-indulgent holidays of Christmas and New Years too. So… November it is - this year and every one to follow.
Regardless of which month diabetes gets the spotlight in though, its just important that it gets it. Why? Because it is one of the most debilitating and one of the most common chronic disorders affecting people… and pets. That’s right, cats and dogs can develop diabetes. And, as this blog post will highlight (at least as regards cats), they can do so with alarming frequency, and with potentially devastating consequences.
So, please read on to help protect the health and safety of your cats, as well as the ‘health’ of your bank account. It’s November… so prepare to become aware of feline diabetes - what it is, when you should suspect it, and what the potential emergency complications of it are. Also included, and it wouldn’t be a Preventive Vet blog post without them, are tips on how you can prevent it and how best you can manage it to avoid the associated emergency complications. Remember to come back to and share this post in other months of the year too, diabetes doesn’t respect the ‘boundaries’ of the calendar… it can strike in any month!
