Mill Road Vet Hospital / Tuesday, 27 June 2017

Eve and her bladder full of stones

This is Eve, a 10 year old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. Her owner first noticed 2 weeks before she was brought into the clinic that she was urinating a lot, straining for some time and often having accidents in the house which was very unusual for her. When we tested her urine in the clinic we found lots of blood in her urine and the pH of her urine was high which often indicates infection.

She was started on a course of antibiotics but within a week her symptoms had worsened. We then performed an ultrasound of her bladder and took an x-ray and discovered that she had a number of large stones in her bladder.

She had surgery the next day. She was put on intravenous fluids and given an anaesthetic then kept asleep with anaesthetic gas. Her surgery took about 45 minutes. During surgery we made an incision into her abdomen and then an incision into her bladder and removed the stones from her bladder.

Our vets and her owners were horrified to find 8 large pyramid shaped stones in her bladder. They were so large that there was hardly any room for urine left, which is why she had to urinate so often! Eve stayed overnight in the clinic on fluids and the next day she was urinating much more comfortably. She went home with antibiotics and pain relief and was a much happier dog from the time she went home.

We sent one of the stones to America to be analysed through a free scheme that Hills Pet Nutrition run. After a few weeks they sent us the results and we found out what the stones were composed of. We changed Eve’s diet to Hill’s W/D as this will help prevent stones reforming in the future by making her urine more acidic and more dilute, as well as reducing the components that make up the stones.

Bladder crystals and stones are a common problem in cats and dogs. Female dogs are prone to forming stones in their bladders – this happens when many crystals group together. There are a number of medical conditions that make them more likely to form such as liver disease, hyperadrenocorticism (Cushings) and infection. Some diets that dogs and cats are fed promote formation of the crystals as well.