Has anyone had to deal with cats' urinary tract infections? We did, one of my cats had several trips to the vet because of it. He would growl in the litterbox because it caused pain to urinate - that was my signal to take him to the vet. The vet had put him on special prescription-only can food. After about two years on it, the kitty is fine and switched back to regular food.

My cats haven't had this but glad to hear that your cat is now better.

I did not know that they were ever able to go back onto regular food. That is great that he did that good of a turn around for sure. We had a couple of cats at a rescue that I worked for that had this condition and theirs was caused by some dysfunction in their bodies that did not allow regular food to process properly.

Yes, at first the vet had also told us that the kitty would have to be on this special food permanently. But then he recovered completely and was able to switch back. It was quite a relief to me because I had been feeding him separately from the other two cats, and of course they always wanted his special food and he wanted their regular one.

I've got three cats. One of whom nearly died from a UTI. It ended up he was on Antibiotics for nearly 3 months, blood specimens had to be sent to America to check everything out and we're still none the wiser but as soon as he shows any sign of behaving differently from normal he goes to the vet where he's given dome antibiotics as a precaution if they can't find anything. One of my other cats has just gotten over a UTI that became a kidney infection (very easy as cats only show symptoms of anything wrong when they are really ill) and he's just finished a month on antibiotics. I do know that crystals in male cats is a serious problem because male cats have a small kink in their urethra that doesn't allow the crystals to pass normally and leads to infection. This along with the fact that cats concentrate their wee for spraying so their kidneys work overtime on any liquids they ingest means that they are very susceptible to Urinary Tract Infections. Whereas female cats are susceptible to UTI's because they have a short urethra that is close to their anus. You can buy plenty of food that is supposed to help but TBH it's the luck of the draw. Some sites say buy wet food others say buy specially formulated dry food with plenty of water. Some say protein good some say protein bad. Some say BARF (Bones and Raw Food)It's what suits your cat and fingers crossed. I saw recently that 20% of cats will have at least one UTI in their life.
The only thing to do is het pet insurance and if you suspect a UTI then go to the vets immediately and follow his advice. Your cat will then tell you if he/she is right or not.

UTI is a common problem with animals, especially dogs and cats. Cats are not easy to UTI than dogs. Problems in the cat lower urinary tract, known to veterinarians for cats uric syndrome is a common illness is not less than 1% of the total population of cat cats who will be affected.