Looking for all advice, opinions, suggestions, hints, tips, whatever! This is going to be long so congrats and thank you if you read it all.

Bunty is a 6 year old moggy, easily stressed out by anything and everything. Throughout April she was put under a lot of stress (I was living elsewhere so moved her out with me for 2 weeks, then she had a dental done beginning of April).
End of April/beginning of May I noticed she was drinking more than usual (75-100ml a day, not a lot by normal cat standards but previously she would have gone days without touching her water bowl), then one night she pee'd on my bed. Brought her to the vets where they done a blood test (biochemistry), bloods came back normal so kidneys ruled out (which I was very worried about due to her dental and the anaesthetic that was used).

Next day a dipstick test and specific gravity test was done on her urine. Dipstick showed traces of protein and leucocytes (white blood cells) in her urine and specific gravity was low meaning her urine was dilute. She was put on antibiotics for 10 days and metacam for 5 days. After the course of antibiotics was finished another dipstick and specific gravity test was done and the same results again showed up, another course of stronger antibiotics was done.

When them antibiotics were finished I dropped another urine sample off to be sent to a lab in England to be cultured and long story short the lab didn't test it so will have to send another sample to them.

Now I have to drop another urine sample out in the morning to do a dipstick and specific gravity on it again, pending on the results she wants to put her on the c/d diet and send off another sample to the lab in England on Tuesday.

Vet keeps pushing for the c/d diet because of her stress levels, I'm a little reluctant because I don't know yet what exactly is wrong with her (crystals a possibility?) so I wouldn't want to put her on the diet only for it to mask whatevers wrong with her and then maybe never get to the bottom of it and never know if it was the diet that helped or what. Also after looking at the ingredients I'm a little shocked.

Other than that there have been no other inappropriate peeing accidents, general health (eyes, coat, ears, activity levels etc.) good, around the time when this all started up there had been no change in food. She's permanently indoors with no interaction with other cats, fully vaccinated (inc. felv), neutered and wormed.
I have noticed it's a little harder to keep weight on her lately, she lost a little weight (was probably slightly overweight and dropped down to a more appropriate weight) without any increase in exercise or decrease in food but I have now upped her food a little and there has been no further weight loss, so the initial weight loss may have been due to stress.

I don't think I have left out anything but I may have. So any advice, ideas, opinions or suggestions please?

I have a cat that has stress uti issues and she is on daily Zyklene for the stress and a Cystaid for keeping the bladder lining healthy, but she exhibits classic in and out of the litter tray every 2 minutes struggling to wee. I would maybe suggest getting a second opinion if you don't think the vet is doing all she can or just to get other idea's on what the problem is.

This link has a lot of info on FLUTD"S and UTI'S but doesn't really help in your case. Feline lower urinary tract disease (FLUTD)

Thanks that link does help to explain things a bit better. Might look into zylkene and cystaid a bit more. Iv to drop a urine sample out tomorrow morning so I might ask if the vet is free to chat and Il see what her opinion is.

Im gonna have to do something about her stress levels anyways if not for this FLUTD thing but for her general wellbeing, it can't be nice for her to live every day in fear, if we have visitors or someone rings the doorbell she's gone like a shot up the stairs and under the bed, we nearly constantly walk around the house on eggshells because she hates sudden movements, while things have gotten much better with the dog I can still see she's not 100% with him so thats another stress add-on.

Have you any experience of feliway? I'm interested to try it but it's the price that's putting me off and our house is 2 storey so I'd need more than 1 diffuser, and the spray wouldn't last long because I'd nearly need to douse everything in it! How effective do you find the zylkene on general behaviour?

Dee - Just a few quick questions at this hour! Has the vet commented at the protein in the urine? Do you know just how dilute the urine was? Is she still drinking more than previously? Is vet treating this as a UTI then?

I don't think she has commented much on the protein in he urine, except today to say that if she still has protein in her urine in tomorrow's dipstick test that she would like to see her on the c/d diet, but then she started saying about putting her on the c/d diet because of stress. Is protein somehow linked to stress? I think it's only trace amounts they said in the beginning anyways.

I can't remember them telling me an exact number for the result except to say it was slightly dilute.

How do you mean previously? Previously before all of this started or has it gotten gradually larger amounts since it started? I measured how much she was drinking every day for about 2 or 3 weeks in the beginning but then I bought a water fountain the beginning of May so Im not sure now exactly how much a day she is drinking. It may have increased slightly going by the level in the water fountain.

In the beginning I think so yes as she was tried on 2 different antibiotics, when the second antibiotic finished up a urine sample was supposed to be sent to a lab in england to be cultured (presumably thats a bacterial culture?) and test for sediment, but the lab wouldn't test it because the sample was too old but it took them over a week and a half to get back to my vets to tell them this so that time was wasted, another sample will be sent to them on Tuesday. At the moment she's on no medication until we know more.

I know how you feel about the stress, I did have a feliway but have stopped it now as we have kind of found a happy balance of trying to manage her stress, I had to disconnect the doorbell as this freaked her out so much, she is also very jumpy with us moving about the house, so we just sort of give a running commentary of what we are doing as if we talk to her she seems less stressed, we also announce ourselves as we walk into a room with her, she has her safe places, the main one being under the duvet on the bed and if she is there then we leave her be, she doesn't like being picked so we try not to unless we really have too, I was very worried about giving her Zyklene but it does seem to help her and it makes her much more confident, when she is not hiding under the duvet she is the most wonderful little cat who loves fusses and will sit on your lap and sleep on your feet all night but she is just so nervey I'm not sure why she is so scared and skittish but she did have a bad start to life.

The reason I've been asking about the proteinuria and the USG is because in some cases these can also be indicators of early stage kidney problems BEFORE there are any signs in blood tests which could explain why they were OK initially. Of course it all depends on the severity of both but at this stage I wouldn't necessarily rule out renal problems either. CRF is generally a disease of older cats but unfortunately younger ones do succumb as well. It could well be just an infection related so I wouldn't be too worried even if this is the case. Of course I could well be wrong but I'd certainly discuss this with your vet.

Tanya's Feline CRF Information Centre - early detection

Incidentally, for a urine and sensitivity culture it's far better to obtain a sterile sample via cytocentesis than a free catch one!

Do you know where in UK the vet is sending the sample and why? I'm wondering because it's strange to have to send one abroad for a mere culture and sensitivity. I'd ask her a bit more about this.

Not aware of any connection between the protein and stress!

Just out from the vets. Another dipstick was done and the same result again, +2 leucocytes and trace protein. They gave me a bag of c/d and a sample will be sent to the lab on Tuesday. They didn't mention anything about cytocentesis, just said to bring in the sample so I just use little beads on the bottom of her tray and use a syringe to suck up a sample. I clean the tray as well as possible but obviously it'l still not be sterile.

Actually now that you mention crf when she was on the 10 day course of antibiotics they were tablets. Towards the end she was getting increasingly stressed and difficult to give them to her and what I began to notice the last few days was a smell of urea on her breath when trying to give her tablets. Never noticed it at any other time other than when we had our twice daily struggle to give her tablets. Mentioned it to the vet who wasn't concerned about it because she couldn't smell it and because the bloods came back perfect.

Axiom is the name of the lab, a lot of things get sent there (I know one vet who doesn't have any in house blood machines sends all her blood samples there), not sure why but I'm guessing it might be cheaper than ucd.

Anyways I dropped in another sample yesterday morning, thought it was being sent off straight away but they done a dipstick on it first anyways. The leucocytes were at a definite +2 but they now have gone down to a faint +1, were holding off on sending the sample away now, going to do another dipstick on friday/saturday to see if it has gone down further. Vet seems to think it's the food that has helped.

The c/d prescription diet will have no effect on her stress levels - the diet is designed for cats with FLUTD/cystitis due to struvite stones, so unless that has actually been diagnosed I would be very hesitant in feeding it.

I would focus on reducing stress and definitely recommend Feliway (it can be brought much cheaper online than from your vet - try Vetuk, they've got offers on Feliway at the moment Feliway | Feliway for Cats ) and also Zylkene, as Greyhare suggested. Its a natural product and it can just be sprinkled in food. Feed a good quality high meat content wet food to give her more moisture and encourage more play - with fishing rod toys or a laser pointer (my cats' favourite )