mele wrote in boston_buddies concerned

Kiko has pee pee problems

Kiko's been leaking urine for a few weeks now. I thought it would just go away but it didn't. I had to change her crate blankets every other day because they would smell. I am thinking it may be incontinence but my doc said to rule out a UTI (which she had when she was just a few months old) first.

So, I took her in early this morning when she woke up and I knew she had a full bladder. I guess she doesn't have a UTI - our care coordinator called with the urinanalysis results - it's totally clear of any problems, so it's probably urinary incontinence which means she'll have to go on a hormone treatment called DES (Diethylstiberol - something like that) - which is pretty safe in low dosages in animals, but is banned in humans. DES' only purpose as a medication is to tighten the bladder sphincter muscle in animals. It used to be used as a hormone replacement for women trying to get pregnant, but it caused birth defects -eek. Guess I'll find out when I go to work tonight. Poor girl. The doc told me this was one of the drawbacks of spaying before the heat - that she'd be more prone to incontinence and UTI's...but it outweighed the more prone to cancer spaying after the 1st heat, in my opinion. If it's not incontinence, it could be a urethra problem which surgery could fix (my other vet told me about this back when she had her first UTI). Let's hope it's not that! *sigh*