Old Man Cat - Bathroom Issues

Our blind, 15.5 year old cat is only peeing once a day, which does not seem like enough, but when he goes it is A LOT. I think he is either holding it all day or having trouble evacuating. He comes to me and paces around and sad meows at me for a while until he finally goes. He has also been pooing outside the box and they look like painful, hard poos. I think he might be constipated. We have tried giving him extra wet food and such, as we know this softens his stool. We have taken him to the vet, but everything came back healthy. We took him into the vet recently because of the anxious pacing around at night and meowing at us, as well as sometimes pooing outside the box. They took a full senior panel, checked his urine, his blood, and his bones. He has no bone spurs or arthritis which is amazing at his age. They said there was nothing wrong with his blood and they only noticed one slightly elevated enzyme that they said could potentially cause GI bleeds, but they were not concerned. They mentioned while there that his bladder was quite full so to keep an eye on it, which we have. He is still going, but like I said before, only once a day with an overly full bladder. I don't know if this is relevant, but since he was having the anxiety and pooing outside the box, they thought maybe he had some pain and that he needed to relax, so they put him on gabapentin. He had a terrible reaction to this, was like a drunk zombie, lost control of his remaining senses, and seemed like he had a lobotomy. He would not come off his high for almost a week. He is blind and it seemed to affect every other sense and put him totally out of whack. He finally seems back to himself but is still having the bathroom issues. Since we have already taken him to the vet and they said all his tests were good, we are at a loss for how to help him feel better. Any advice?  

Hello - it sounds to me as though arthritic pain may not yet have been ruled out as a cause of this problem.  The pain releif of choice caused such side effects as would make it difficult to tell.  Furthermore, radiographic spurs do not always correlate to the degree of pain in arthritis.  Pain can certainly cause reluctance to squat and urine holding.  Assuming that bloods and urine were fine (thats for your vet), I wonder whether your vet might  want to try an NSAID.   They may have been avoiding it because of the potential liver issue - it would depend for me which enzyme, and the likely reasons for this (some liver enzymes change for a whole host of reasons unrelated to the liver, so it may well be worth asking them about). Certainly, your cat sounds to be stressed as things are and more help seems to be in order. A low, easy to enter litter tray is sometimes worth a goldmine.   Wishing him the best of luck.

Hmmm I have read this through a few times now.  Your question, 'any advice,' is quite broad.  Obviously, the best source of advice at this stage is the vet wjo knows your cat, and the best advice i can give you probably relates to getting the best out of them.   So here goes: 1)  Is your cat having a reasonable quality of life and can anything be done to improve it?  I think that this is the key question in a 15 yesr old cat. 2) what is the problem list at the moment?  This is a list of complaints, usually starting with the most severe, usually as witnessed by the owners and prioritised /  streamlined by the vet. 3)  What is the most likely cause of the signs as it can be understood at the moment? (cystitis or arthritis, for example?)   What would treat the most likely causes?  Could such treatments be given, or is there an important reason to rule out other diseases or certify the cause of the signs first? 4) What are (in no partular order) the cost and the stress (to patient) and the risk to patient implications of any recommended treatments or tests or ways forward? 5) what does your vet reccommend that you do? Usually, I find that this line of questioning will help you to feel your way around an understanding of how the picture is for your loved one.