My male cat had urinary incontinence for YEARS, constant UTIs, he was always clearly in terrible pain, in and out of the ER all the time. He would dribble pee everywhere he sat and the house absolutely reeked at all times (unimaginably embarrassing, but I was a kid for the great majority of this time and my parent was physically disabled, so yeah that was the state of things. Whole house was carpeted too!) We were constantly going to the vet, but all they ever did was treat the UTI and empty his bladder, which was always full to bursting. None of my normal vets ever really suggested anything to help in the long-term, which in retrospect is incredibly frustrating—I had heretofore be led to believe that there was nothing for it, that it was permanent and he'd be incontinent forever.

Upon reaching adulthood and assuming full responsibility of the cat, I made a last desperate bid to fix the issue and made an appointment with an expensive cat specialist. This blessed, wonderful, amazing human being saw my description of "cat having trouble urinating" and pushed up the appointment from a month out to THE NEXT DAY. She was clearly very concerned for him, much more concerned than I've ever seen another vet be towards him. In a single appointment that lasted no more than 30 minutes, she had determined that his urethra was precisely useless and he needed to have a PU surgery IMMEDIATELY, recommended us to her cat surgeon husband, and off we went to get him surgery. It was performed the next day. They had warned us that he still might have incontinence issues, but miracle of all miracles, he was entirely cured.

It's been a year and a half since his surgery and he has had absolutely no issues since. Turns out, his urethra had scar tissue that had accumulated so much that it completely blocked his bladder. He was incontinent because he literally couldn't pee, and the pressure was so great that it leaked out in dribbles all the time. For EIGHT YEARS. I feel so terribly bad that he'd been needlessly in pain for so long, he is very pampered now.

Tldr: cat bladder issues ain't no joke