I came home,he was under the bed,lightly howling,ihad to push him out-he always greets me at the door.He went strait to the bathtub. He's very uncomfortable, in pain.I have no money,or way to get him to the vet. I was told a small piece of ibuprofen once a day for three days works,also there's some kind of liquid that clears it up.Can someone -please help me quick ! Thankyou- Bryan Scott.

Without seeing a vet, there's no way of knowing if it really IS a uti, even if it shares all the same symptoms. A vet would also be able to tell you if there's something causing this to recur.

I can tell you that NO vet will suggest you use any medication meant for humans on an animal. Not only can you not be sure of the correct dosage, but they weren't tested for animal use, so there's no way to know if they are completely safe. Do NOT give your animal ANY medication not recommended by a vet.

Have you tried calling the vets in the area and seeing if you can set up a payment plan? What about calling pet rescues and seeing if they know of any vets that may be willing to help?

I'm curious who the heck told you ibuprofen would work. You need to make sure that dolt understands that a) you don't give ibuprofen to a cat, and b) assuming it's an infection, that ibuprofen doesn't get rid of infections. A UTI would need antibiotics. Also be aware that a UTI can be deadly, so if you think that's what it is, you really need to try to get to a vet.

You may be able to get away with just bringing a urine sample in, if you can get one. (If it's a UTI that could be difficult.) My vet would let me do this, but he also knows me and I'm a regular client and he trusts me. If there's a vet around who knows you, they may let you do this. If you have no regular vet, that probably isn't going to happen.

Are you sure the other ones were UTI's? If so, were these recent? I'm wondering if something's going on that has never really gotten cleared up to begin with, and you think it's different episodes. Sometimes this takes a culture to find the correct antibiotic to really get rid of it.

Some of the simpler things you can do to try to help prevent further ones. One, keep the litter box & area clean. Two, stress can contribute, so try to keep stress to a minimum. And three, and important, feeding wet food instead of dry so that they're getting more fluids going through them to help prevent a build-up of crystals and such, and possibly help flush things out.

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Originally Posted by hheath541

i can tell you that NO vet will suggest you use any medication meant for humans on an animal. not only can you not be sure of the correct dosage, but they weren't tested for animal use, so there's no way to know if they are completely safe. do NOT give your animal ANY medication not recommended by a vet.

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While I agree that no one should give their pet medication that their vet didn't recommend, and I am not advising giving ibuprophen to a cat (***), vets do recommend people giving human medication to pets a lot (Benadryl and Gravol come to mind). All medications for pets that aren't specifically made for pets (so things like amoxicillin cefazolin, sulcrate, prednisone, etc etc) are human medications, that we use for pet medicaton. I WISH they would make animal only medications for some of these, cause it's a pain in the butt getting it off the shelf at the pharmacy and having to use a drug book to figure out dosages because the dose on the bottle is for humans.

I know in the town next to us the Petco has a vet on call 6 days a week, though I have not ever taken my animals to him. A lot of people just go there and talk to him, and since it is a pet store they have a lot of things available that you would not find in a people store. Never cost anything to call and ask. Just a bit of time...

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I can tell you that NO vet will suggest you use any medication meant for humans on an animal. Not only can you not be sure of the correct dosage, but they weren't tested for animal use, so there's no way to know if they are completely safe. Do NOT give your animal ANY medication not recommended by a vet.

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Just weighing in on this since it was already brought up. There's actually two different statements in here. One is saying vets wouldn't recommend a human med for an animal, when yes they do, all the time. In fact, there's only one meds I've ever given to a cat that I couldn't find in my human pill book (Clavamox, which is a combo of amoxicillin and something else that I forget). Everything else I've ever used or heard about is in there. (Though it's important to note cats are still not humans.)

But it's the last sentence that needs paid attention to: you don't do it without a recommendation from the vet and knowing correct dosage and that sort of thing. So I think that's the most important point. (And NSAIDs are particularly something you don't want to mess with on your own!)