My cat has Feline idiopathic cystitis and barely moves, how long will this sort of behavior last?

You should be able to cure this within a few to several days doing the following:

If the prescribed food is prescription diet dry food (vet recommended), stop it immediately. Provide high quality wet food only and give her for example boiled fish with some added water. Need to get water into her regularly and indefinitely.

Secondly, need to make the place less stressful for her. Incidentally female ginger tabbies are rare. If you are away all the time (understandable) it will cause stress - separation anxiety.

I am afraid you'll have to try and fix that problem (difficult). Idiopathic cystitis has 2 causes in my view: dry food + stress. Tackle both if you can. It'll work I feel pretty sure.

I see that you are tackling the stress element with a medication. Changing the environment is better and a permanent solution. Drugs aren't.

Vets tend to prescribe dry foods which are formulated to help cure cystitis but it is a misconceived policy as the cure is water to help flush the urinary tract system.

Dry foods cause mild dehydration which creates a good medium in which bacteria can develop in the bladder.

The above method should work within days.

Is she a full-time indoor cat left alone? If that is true, it is a sure-fire way to not solve the problem. Try some supervised outdoor activity. She needs to be active as well. Is she overweight? That won't help either. Sorry for being a bit tough. 😻😎

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

My kitten is 13 weeks old and does not eat her wet cat food. Ideas?

 This title was/is on Reddit.com. This is my response on that social media website:

Dry cat food is sprayed with tasty stuff which can make it addictive almost. Without this covering it is like cardboard. I think it is fairly important that she eats some wet. What might work is trying best quality wet and heating it very slightly in the microwave. Also try wet food for elderly cats for a short time as it is smellier. Just some thoughts. Eating dry all the time might make her slightly dehydrated. It can cause urinary tract issues. If she is a rescue cat, she may have got used to dry food at the shelter.

I am not sure I am completely right but the gist is correct. 

Here is the sweet, young, grey cat. Photo by Reddit user: u/Coke900lp.

I will add a little bit of detail. It is not unusual on my research for domestic cats to become almost addicted to dry cat food because it appears to be tastier than some wet cat foods. It must depend upon the quality of the food as well but they do spray tasteless dry cat food with a fatty spray which makes it very tasty. And it probably smells better than some wet cat food as well. And they get in the habit of eating dry cat food only as this cat has.

I think a possible solution is to buy high quality wet cat food for elderly cats which is smellier than your typical wet cat food and then microwave it for a very short time say five seconds on full power. This will ensure that the food is smellier which is important as smell is how cats judge the palatability of food initially.

As stated, I think domestic cats should eat wet cat food as a default and then some dry cat food when appropriate perhaps at night for grazing. And the odd treat. But to feed dry only can, on the say-so of some veterinarians, cause mild dehydration because domestic cats don't compensate for the dryness by drinking more than they would normally drink. 

And if a cat is mildly dehydrated it can affect their urinary tract and it might predispose them to urinary tract health problems especially if they might, for some reason, become slightly stressed. Stress can cause to cystitis when combined with dry cat food only.

Effect of stress on cats with feline idiopathic cystitis and healthy cats

Feline idiopathic cystitis is linked to stress and it is very painful for domestic cats to suffer from this disease. A study evaluated the behaviour and physiological responses of cats with feline idiopathic cystitis and cats that were healthy.

RELATED: Why does stress exacerbate cystitis in domestic cats?

The way they achieved this was to look after the cats in a controlled environment for about a year. They had the same people looking after the cats and everything was stable. And then suddenly they destabilised the situation by feeding the cats at different times by different people. The whole husbandry of the participating cats was messed up with the deliberate purpose of stressing the cats concerned.

And when they did this there was a clear indication that there were specific sickness behaviours as a result such as vomiting, diarrhoea, anorexia or decrease food and water intake. There was also lethargy, fever, somnolence and enhanced pain-like behaviours. There was decreased general activity and the cats cared for themselves less actively and to the same standard. They socially interacted less often. In short, there are many signs of unhappy stressed cats in their health and in their behaviour.

They concluded that stresses which are short-term can lead to a significant increase in "sickness behaviours" both in cats with feline idiopathic cystitis and those cats that are healthy.

They further concluded that humans can assess stress responses and overall welfare of cats through monitoring of their sickness behaviours.

In detail - this is provided by Chat GPT

The purpose of the study was to investigate the behavioral and physiological responses of healthy cats and cats diagnosed with feline interstitial cystitis (FIC) when exposed to a five-day stressor. The researchers conducted the study at The Ohio State University Veterinary Medical Center (OSUVMC) vivarium, where ten healthy cats and 18 cats with FIC were housed. 

All cats had been living in enriched cages for at least one year before the experiment, receiving daily playtime, socialization outside of the cage, food treats, and auditory enrichment. The cats were cared for by two familiar caretakers, following a consistent daily schedule. During the test days, the cats were subjected to multiple unpredictable stressors. These stressors included exposure to unfamiliar caretakers, an inconsistent husbandry schedule, and discontinuation of playtime, socialization, food treats, and auditory enrichment. 

The researchers monitored the cats for sickness behaviors (SB), which included vomiting, diarrhea, anorexia or decreased food and water intake, fever, lethargy, somnolence, enhanced pain-like behaviors, decreased general activity, body care activities (grooming), and social interactions. SB occurrences were recorded daily. In addition to monitoring the behavioral responses, the researchers also collected blood samples from the cats before and after the stress period to measure various physiological parameters.

These included serum cortisol concentration, leukocytes (white blood cells), lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell), neutrophils (another type of white blood cell), neutrophil-to-lymphocyte (N:L) ratio, and mRNA levels of the cytokines interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α). The results of the study showed that both healthy cats and cats with FIC exhibited a significant increase in sickness behaviors when exposed to the short-term stressors. 

However, specific physiological changes, such as lymphopenia (reduced lymphocyte count) and alterations in the N:L ratio, were observed only in the cats with FIC. The researchers concluded that monitoring cats for sickness behaviors can be a noninvasive and reliable method to assess their stress responses and overall welfare, especially when they are housed in cages. By studying the behavioral and physiological responses to stressors, the study provides insights into the impact of stress on cats with FIC and highlights the importance of managing stress in these animals for their well-being. Regenerate response

TNR volunteers feeding cats need to put down WATER with the dry food

This may be common sense to many volunteers and it may be the norm but I think it needs to be said just in case. Pretty much the only type of food that I see being put down for stray and feral cats is dry cat food. 

This is for the obvious reason that is much more durable particularly in hot climates. It doesn't go off rapidly. This means that all the cats can take advantage of the opportunity to feed. 

But the problem with dry cat food is that it leaves the cat mildly dehydrated. In a hot climate the cat might become a little more dehydrated than normal if they solely feed on dry cat food. 

They need water to rehydrate. Even them they'll probably be slightly dehydrated as cats are poor drinkers and don't fully compensate for the lack of water in dry kibble. 

Dehydration can lead to illnesses such as cystitis because the urine becomes less dilute which in turn encourages a bacterial bladder infection which is cystitis. 

The potential to developing cystitis is exacerbated by stress. The life of a stray and feral cat is stressful.

The food for stray and feral cats should also be put down for a set period of time. That is probably well known as well. 

The idea here is to avoid criticism from neighbours who believe that in feeding feral cats you are also feeding 'vermin and pests' and unwanted wildlife. 

The compromise is to put food cat down for a limited time which the cats get used to. The cats are fed and the opportunity for wildlife to feed is severely limited. 

This doesn't necessarily preclude entirely wildlife feeding on dry cat food but it hopefully deals with the potential or actual criticism by others. 

There are some people who don't like TNR. They think it doesn't work and that it attracts unwanted animals. 

TNR volunteers need to appease these detractors; to keep them happy if they are to successfully discharge their work.

For cats, cat cafés are like an innocent human being banged up in prison and beaten up

Ben the Vet on TikTok has an interesting take on cat cafés. He thinks they are unsuitable for cats. He seems to disagree with the entire concept. I think he'd get rid of them if he had the power to do so. The point he is making is that in cat cafés, a rather large number of cats are confined to a rather small space and this creates pressure on them territorially.

At a fundamental level domestic cats have the character of the African wildcat which is solitary. Domestic cats have learned to be social creatures over the nine thousand years of domestication but their solitariness is ever present and beyond a certain point being confined with many other cats can put too much pressure on some of them.

They become stressed and a fight can break out as seen in the video. This is why I disagree with multi-cat homes. Normally people who want to own many cats and keep then locked in their home are pretty insensitive to their cats' needs.

RELATED: Are cat cafés ethical?

For me they are ego-centric. They want a lot of cats for personal reasons. How the cats feel is secondary. It should be the other way around.

I think Ben has exaggerated the problem a bit with his analogy but it's an interesting one and it got me thinking which is why, I think, he said it.

And he mentions cystitis being caused exclusively by stress. He's suggesting that cats in cat cafes are going to be predisposed to contracting cystitis. And possibly get a bite and cat bites can be serious because of the bacterial infection injected under the skin. They wound will need to be washed out and the puss removed and the cat put on a course of antibiotics.

Squabbling cats at a cat cafe. Screenshot.

Can stress make cats sick?

Yes, stress can make domestic cats sick. It's the same with people which clearly supports the argument that stress makes domestic cats sick. The best-known sickness arising out of stress is feline idiopathic cystitis. This is cystitis with no known or obvious cause. 

 Can stress make cats sick? Yes, but not in this cat. Photo: MikeB

It's ironic because the cause is often stress. The condition is better described as feline interstitial cystitis (FIC) which is a chronic pain syndrome of domestic cats. It is basically a recurring cystitis the symptom of which is peeing in small amounts around the home. Sometimes to pee is bloody. Cats with FIC have chronic, recurrent lower urinary tract signs and other associated disorders that are exacerbated by stressors.

SOME PAGES ON STRESSED CAT - CLICK TO READ THEM IF YOU WISH.

They did a study on this in 2013. The study was entitled: Effects of stressors on the behaviour and physiology of domestic cats. They employed 10 healthy cats and 18 cats with FIC. The study was conducted at the Ohio State University Veterinary Medical Centre. They housed the cats in "enriched cages" for at least one year prior to the experiment! Comment: I don't like this experiment. It appears to be an abuse but it was done many years ago so there's no point in complaining.

All the cats were treated well in these cages with plenty of enrichment and interaction with people that they knew. They had food treats and were taken out of the cages sometimes. Then during the test days, they withheld all these pleasantries which made the cats' lives a lot worse. 

They tested the effect that this had on the cats. They found that sickness behaviours including vomiting, diarrhoea, anorexia or decreased food and water intake, fever, lethargy, decreased activity and a reduction in self-grooming occurred in varying amounts in both the healthy and the FIC cats.

However, in cats suffering from FIC they found that there were changes in lymphopenia and N:L (neutrophil:lymphocyte). Lymphopenia is a condition in which there are less than the normal number of lymphocytes, a type of white blood cells in the blood. White blood cells are part of the immune system as they attack invading organisms. Therefore, a lowering of white blood cells will reduce the cat's immune system.

The neutrophil:lymphocyte ratio is a method, as I understand it, to measure stress. It is the number of neutrophils divided by the number of lymphocytes. Under physiologic stress, the number of neutrophils increases while the number of lymphocytes decreases.

Can stress make cats sick? Yes, as is the case in humans and the most commonly associated illness is feline idiopathic cystitis. You can read about that disease by clicking on this link if you wish. The main cause of feline idiopathic cystitis is conflict with another cat in a multi-cat home.

Cat Urinating and Defecating in the Wrong Place

Dealing with a cat who poops and pees in the wrong place is largely a matter of common sense. There is, however, a difference between the reasons behind defecating and urinating in the wrong place.

If a cat is urinating in the wrong place there are two equally important reasons that this. The first thing to do is to check whether your cat has a health problem. Typically a health problem that results in a cat urinating in the wrong place is an infection of the urinary tract. Cystitis is a typical feline infection that causes him or her to urinate in inappropriate places. Cystitis is a bacterial infection of the bladder. You should, therefore, see your veterinary surgeon first before taking steps to try and stop your cat from your urinating in inappropriate places. You need to make sure that your cat is healthy before moving on to the next phase.

On the basis that your cat is healthy, you should then make sure that her litter tray is always clean. That invariably means cleaning it daily at least. Then you should check that the material used is acceptable to your cat. That will mean changing it to see whether it makes any difference. Then you should check that the tray is in the right place. The tray should not be in a busy location. Choose somewhere quiet and out of the way. Change its position and see what happens.

On the assumption that you have the right material in the tray, the right position of the tray and the tray is clean, if your cat still refuses to use the tray you should ask yourself whether declawing your cat is a factor. We know that declawed cats, because of tenderness in their claws, can have difficulty in using conventional material. This problem probably goes away after a while but it is a point worth checking.

Urinating in the wrong place is not the same thing as spraying which is marking territory. I'm sure you are aware of what that means. Normally male or female domestic cats do not spray vertically against objects in the home. Cats that have not been neutered are more likely to mark territory by spraying horizontally. A cat owner should accept it as normal. If they cannot accept it they should get their cats neutered. Therefore, owners should be aware of the difference between marking territory through spraying and urinating in inappropriate places.

Cats also mark territory by defecating at a certain place. This happens less often than urinating against a vertical object. Incidentally, cats also mark territory by rubbing their bodies against objects including very typically the sides of their face where there are glands that secrete a liquid that is then deposited on the object.

However, a cat may defecate on places such as your bed. This is a form of marking territory and an expression of stress because marking territory is a reassuring process. Accordingly, if your cat is defecating in inappropriate places you should ask yourself whether there are reasons why your cat is stressed. This may be because you are absent a lot. Incidentally, stress is also behind urinating in the wrong place due to cystitis.

There are also health reasons why your cat may defecate in inappropriate places. For example, your cat may be incontinent. You will clearly need to take your cat to your veterinary surgeon for a health check before asking yourself whether things that you do, your behaviour, is causing the problem.

These then are, in basic terms, the underlying reasons why a cat may defecate and urinate in the wrong place. There are many articles on this website which deal with this subject, which is one of the most typical so-called behavioural problems that people complain about in relation to their cat companion.

The key to resolving these problems is to check health first then your behaviour and patterns of behaviour second, particularly in relation to whether it causes your cat to be stressed.

It is important to do one's best to avoid resorting to drugs such as Valium and Prozac, mood enhancers that can help cats, before dealing with simple a more healthy issues first. Using mood enhancing drugs is a last resort for both people and cats.

Cats naturally look to a litter tray to defecate and urinate before using any other area in the home. Therefore, you could argue that if a cat defecates or urinates on household furnishings it is because he or she is being forced to do so. It will be a natural consequence of the circumstances under which he finds himself and therefore we could logically say that it is not inappropriate from the cat's perspective.

Feline Cystitis Warning

There should be a warning about feline cystitis and its association with stress. What I mean is we should look at stress in our cat if she has cystitis. Cystitis is a feline urinary tract disease and Urinary Tract Infections (UTI) are one the most common feline diseases. It makes you think actually because there may be more stress problems in the domestic cat than we think. We know that cats don't openly show their distress. Our cat can't communicate with us on the issue of stress. We have to look for signs. One possible sign is cystitis. It might not be the only cause - another could be a diet of dry cat food - but being sensitive to the possibility that your cat might be stressed should be a consideration.

It appears that stress aggravates symptoms of cystitis rather than being a single direct cause. A scientific study by Cameron and associates in 2004 found that "several stress factors were found to be associated with FIC" (feline idiopathic cystitis -- cystitis with no obvious cause). It was concluded that the outstanding stressor or stress factor was a cat living with another cat or cats with which there was some form of conflict. People managing multi-cat households should probably look at how their cats get on and whether anything can be done to alleviate compatibility problems between cats. Also the "lack of adequate provision for normal feline behaviors" should be assessed¹. In multi-cat households there may be competition for litter trays, food and water. The competition should be reduced because someone is losing the competition regularly. Also if a cat has limited access to water due to the presence of a dominant cat the submissive cat may develop a UTI. A safe area for submissive cats might help.

On a personal level my experience informs me that another stress factor can be separation anxiety for a single cat whose only companion is the human caretaker. This does not have to be for long individual periods of separation. To put that in different terms, a cat left alone all day, every weekday, in a flat while the owner goes out to make a living and comes back late having left early can cause stress. Day after day of that may greatly exacerbate urinary tract problems leading to cystitis.

Normally, you won't know your cat is stressed until you see spots of bloody urine on the carpet in the corners. This form of inappropriate elimination can be caused by your cat forming an association between the pain of urination and the litter tray driving her to go elsewhere. Or perhaps and in addition your cat simply has to go anywhere. Cystitis creates a strong urge to go to the toilet.

You might be able to detect stress through separation anxiety by the behavior of your cat on your return. Was she by the front door when you opened it?  Sometimes cat with FIC will over-groom in the area of the lower abdomen and thighs. This is probably due to the discomfort felt in those areas.

Note: 1 page 111 The Welfare of Cats ISBN 978-1-4020-6143-1 - excellent book. Buy it on Amazon for the best price.