Just saw this, 1 of my boys was near 100% blocked, was my first experience w/ it. By the time i realized the severity of the problem it was Saturday night, I did some googling and found out he could die if i waited to get him treated so off to a 24 hour clinic. First estimate for his treatment was not much under 2000 dollars. I told the assistant it was totally unreasonable and she went back to the vet and came back with 3 more estimates on paper and explained 1 at a time from the highest to the lowest and lowest 500 dollars wasn't even an worthy option as she said the cat would probably be back to the same condition the next day. There were several ridiculously high charges such as 100 dollars for 1 night of pain meds that i disputed and she shifted some thing's around and got it down about $900. I think it was 2 nights they had him and Monday morning i picked him up and took him with the catheter straight to my local vet who kept him another day or 2 until all was clear and she removed the catheter all for little over $200. His primary diet has been Purina 1 UT formula since. It's mixed about 1/2 with water. He gets a little canned food and eats a significant amount of rodents when out about 1/3 the time. About 4 years this has worked well for him.
I have 3 females that's had multiple UT issues also . Been struggling with 1 lately, she gets into things and eats whats bad for her. Looked like she ate a large amount of brown sugar is what i think triggered the last. None of the females were 100% blocked and about 10 days of antibiotic and prescription UT food has been effective. Vet wants me to feed them 4, 100% U T at about $2.25 a can or $300 + a month + I feed 6 more cats, a dog and my poultry. I keep a close eye on the cats, mix water with their food and substitute some less expensive non prescription food for prescription when they are obviously doing well. Been aiming to start feeding them deer meat but I haven't the space to add a freezer at this point. Also considered trapping some muskrats to feed them . Game should be good with a UT diet.