Vaginitis, spaying, bladder infection- HELP?

[Erikro]

I have a female who is 21 weeks old, she has been treated for two bladder infections the last being about a month ago. The past couple of days she has wet her crate, very unusual, I think her bladder infection is back. I took the urinary sample down to the vet and they say it is inconclusive but they believe that it is vaginitis, not bladder problem. They want to do a test where they stick a needle through her stomach into the bladder and draw a sample directly to test. my wife and I get very upset at the thought of this and decide we don't want to do that unless there is no other way. My vet says okay and gives us Panolog ointment to insert in her vagina twice a day and says that we should be able to tell in a couple of days if it is vaginitis because she will be doing better. Well, so far we haven't been succesfull at putting this small tube in her vagina to squirt the ointment out. With that in mind, here are my questions:

1) Is this the typical way of treating vaginitis?

2) We are going to have her spayed in approx 3 weeks anyways as we don't plan on breeding her or showing her, now my vet says that new research shows that letting a female go through the first heat cycle helps prevent these type of problems. This is contrary to everything that I have read. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

3) At this point does it matter if we get her spayed at 24 weeks versus 21 weeks?

Please, any info that you could add would be greatly appreciated. My wife and I are both so frustrated and upset and want to do what is best for Carlie but we can't seem to get an answer on exactly what that is. I should add that we have both decided that regardless of what we do we are finding a new vet, not good experiences with the office at all.

Thank you in advance.

Erik

[tbmckee]

Our baby is now 6 1/2 months old. She got vaginists and had leaking too. The vaginitis started as a yucky discharge that we had checked out. The vet gaver her antibiotics and the cream. It took both of us for awhile to get it where it needed to go. She still occasionally has the discharge but not nearly as bad as it was. From what I understand, vaginitis is common.

The leaking for us was because she was spayed at 11 weeks. There is some sphincter muscle that didn't develop because of the surgery and lack of hormones. She was leaking quite badly. Now she takes hormones three times a day and will for the rest of her life.

Don't know if this helps or not. I can offer the suggestion to try a different vet for a second opinion if you don't feel the first one is helping.

Good luck with your baby.

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