i'm glad to read that he's feeling better
but i just wanted to say, a few drops of ACV did not cure him; more than likely this is either coincidental timing, or a placebo-effect type situation (on your interpretation of his behavior, not on his ability to comprehend being medicated hehe).
UTI's in cats are complicated and caused by a wide variety of things. acv may help in some cases, depending on causation, but it will NOT help most of the time, and should therefore NOT be a recommended replacement for vet care. i can't stress this enough. those of you who have personal experiences with acv "curing" a cat were -lucky- pure and simple.
i just gotta say this, and this is NOT directed at any of you in particular, i promise
it's just a PSA type thing for future readers.
the most common cause for the "UTI" blanket term as applied to cats, in my experience, is diet. as Free mentioned earlier, dry food and especially cheap, high grain-content food can cause UTI symptoms very easily, because that's not what cat bodies were made for. cats in general do not drink enough fluids, even if you think they do. really. if you see them drinking all the time, it's because they're desperate for hydration. their bodies are really designed to get much of their water intake through their food, not by drinking. compare a mouse at 70-80% water content to dry kibble at 15-20%, and this is why even when drinking normally, they are still not getting enough liquids. this in turn causes their urine to get concentrated, and on top of that, their urinary tracts also aren't flushed out as often as they should be because they're not peeing as often, leading to infections and/or stones. now, there are two main types of stones which are made from different minerals. one of which (struvites) can often be treated through diet change, the other of which (calcium oxalates) cannot be treated with diet. if you treat for home-diagnosed "UTI" by giving ACV (and most other home remedies), you ignore the possibility of there being an infection, and you ignore the possibility of there being insoluble stones. and you also ignore the possibility that they don't actually have a UTI at all, that it might be something else. IF this is the case, you are taking a huge, huge risk by not seeking vet care, and allowing the animal to suffer unnecessarily over a medical condition that is usually not even all that expensive to treat if caught early. even the insoluble stones, treated early while small, can usually be simply flushed out by a vet. treated late, after failed home remedies, they can be too big to flush and require surgery. the difference in price between these treatments is usually a deal-breaker.
clumping clay cat litter, loose dirt, fine sand, etc, especially for male cats (smaller urethras), can cause urinary obstructions which have symptoms very similar to late stage UTI. except they can kill the cat much more quickly. sometimes, cats can get urinary obstructions just from a buildup of tissue cells or discharge within their tract that doesn't get flushed away. if they can't pee, it is a medical emergency.
idiopathic cystitis in the urinary tract doesn't involve stones or infections, but can also cause similar symptoms, and often will "cure itself" only to recur later. so you "treat" the cat, think it has worked, and then the problem comes back later because the actual cause was not addressed.
some cats are also just prone to UTIs. genetics play a factor, just like with people.
prevention is really the key for these things... in a perfect world, you'd live someplace where there were no predators, cars, diseases, or neighbors with beautifully mulched gardens and shotguns, so that you could let your cat safely and responsibly hunt for its natural food. most people now don't have that luxury. so high quality wet food is probably the best way to prevent most UTIs. the extra water content really, really makes a difference in preventing many of these problems, just by helping keep the urine pH correct and the tract continually flushed with dilute urine. ---high quality--- kibbles have recently started getting better about their mineral contents, which helps marginally with preventing struvite stones, but wet food is still better if you know your cat is prone to such issues. store bought or carefully-researched homemade, either way.
