It took 5 different vets over 7 separate visits and subq fluids for one of them to find my cat’s bladder and get a urine sample. Is there any way I would be able to make it easier for them to get a sample aside from making sure he drinks lots of water, or is my cat just cursed with a weirdly hard to find bladder?
gettingvetted here.
If a cat has a very small bladder (which is often the case with UTI’s or partial blockages, since they are urinating so often due to discomfort), it can be next to impossible to obtain a sample from them. This is especially true if they are overweight/obese. We will sometimes send home non-absorbent plastic litter with the instructions to use a new or thoroughly bleached/cleaned litterbox and keep only the cat in question in a room by itself and wait until it urinates. However, a sample like that is considered at least a little bit “contaminated” because it had to go through the urethra which naturally contains bacteria and rest on a surface that probably has at least some bacteria even if bleached, and we prefer a “clean” sample using a needle and ultrasound in many cases especially if they have been treated unsuccessfully. So it’s likely nothing that you or your cat could change!
