Blood coming from somewhere

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TooSweetKittyMom (GA)

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Kitty has been on Prozinc for 10 days and seems to be doing well as far as that goes, but now she's developed another problem. Two days ago the litter box and surrounding area had drops and splotches of what looked like blood clots and pink urine. It was the last thing I expected to see, but I know diabetic cats are prone to UTIs, so I made another appointment for that day. They ran a urine culture and pronounced it completely unremarkable; in fact, there wasn't even any glucose in her urine (yay!!!!!) They also did an ultrasound to check for stones, and found none, nor any thickening of the bladder wall. We all shrugged and decided she'd somehow gotten into my frozen strawberries.

This morning there is more blood. It looks like she spent part of the night sitting on a towel, and that towel has two blood clots and is surrounded by a large wet spot with some wicking of blood. I don't smell urine or anything else.

With both incidents, there was no sign of feces, nor is there any sign of blood in or around her feces. As far as I can tell from a quick peek (she's modest) her openings look normal.

She is 12 years old and spayed.

I'm at a loss.
 
I'd call your vet and try to bring her in again. Maybe the urine culture was a false negative, or there might be something more serious going on, but either way I think it's something that needs vet attention.

Is she showing any other signs of a UTI (frequent urination, pain with urination, etc.)?
 
Thanks! No, not really any other signs of a UTI beyond the frequent urination, which could still be diabetes related.

She does have a recheck coming up to see how her fructosamine is doing. I'm hoping I can just hold off until that appointment. And of course we're heading into another weekend.
 
Teasel went through episodes of idiopathic cystitis frequently before his FD diagnosis. He's pee small amounts with clots of red blood in it either in the litter box, in the bathtub and, infrequently, on towels, etc. These episodes would come and go. Early on I took him to the vet, had urine cultures done and so on and with few exceptions there was no UTI. Eventually I learned that the episodes were self limiting and as long as he kept peeing I just did the watchful waiting thing. I suggest you Google "feline urinary syndrome".
 
i don't recall the official name vet told me but, sounds like stress bleeding to me. my easily stressed out cat will pee/spray blood within the week after something really stresses him out, has had about 5 episodes of it in his 6yrs with us. looked like tiny little globs of gel, i thought it was cranberries pieces from my dog's food first time i saw it!
 
Thank you, all who responded. If she hadn't gotten a clean bill of health less than 48 hours ago I'd take her right in, but we were JUST there, and when she had absolutely no signs of urinary trouble I sensed the vets wondering if they had a case of Munchausen syndrome by proxy on their hands.

Sylvie, the stress bleeding makes sense, as there have been some definite stressors for her (and me) lately beyond just the diabetes. It does look very much like little blobs of cranberry, strawberry jam.

Kris, thanks for the tip on feline urinary syndrome and the hints about water. That actually makes a lot of sense, as before her diagnosis I would regularly add water to her canned food to help balance the kibble. She also got a dose of Cosequin each morning, as several years ago she had blood in her urine and the vet said she might be prone to an irritable bladder and cosequin might help. I've been so focused on insulin dosages that I know I've been forgetting the cosequin, and with the change to strictly canned food I haven't been adding water lately either. I'm sure returning to diligence on both of those things would help a lot, or at least, not hurt.

Thanks!
 
TooSweetKittyMom said:
Thank you, all who responded. If she hadn't gotten a clean bill of health less than 48 hours ago I'd take her right in, but we were JUST there, and when she had absolutely no signs of urinary trouble I sensed the vets wondering if they had a case of Munchausen syndrome by proxy on their hands.

Sylvie, the stress bleeding makes sense, as there have been some definite stressors for her (and me) lately beyond just the diabetes. It does look very much like little blobs of cranberry, strawberry jam.

Kris, thanks for the tip on feline urinary syndrome and the hints about water. That actually makes a lot of sense, as before her diagnosis I would regularly add water to her canned food to help balance the kibble. She also got a dose of Cosequin each morning, as several years ago she had blood in her urine and the vet said she might be prone to an irritable bladder and cosequin might help. I've been so focused on insulin dosages that I know I've been forgetting the cosequin, and with the change to strictly canned food I haven't been adding water lately either. I'm sure returning to diligence on both of those things would help a lot, or at least, not hurt.

Thanks!
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Stress is a known trigger for idiopathic cystitis. "Irritable bladder" is a good name for it. It compares to irritable bowel (IBS) in humans - ie., the symptoms are there but there's no disease agent like bacteria involved. The episodes come and go and anxiety/stress can set it off.
 
I have had some episodes of idipoathic cystitis too and he would leave small red clogs almost like mucus (actually they are small pices of the bladder linen) and pinkish urine, the episodes would come and go, and my guess is they were stress related, I would give him a lot of water in those episodes to help "cleaning" everything

Still it wouldn't hurt to run an other urianalisis just to make sure no bacteria or crystals (crystals could hurt her urinary system and cause the bleeding ) are present in her urine and also a blood work just to make sure her kiddneys are ok
 
My Dweezil was prone to idiopathic FLUTDS which was urinary inflammation but with no infection, no crystals, no blockage. Just...?? Buprenorphine always helped by stopping the cycle of constantly trying to pee and straining, so the inflammation also then stopped. All good often within hours.
 
When Teasel had his bouts my vet gave me Cerenia (some antiinflammatory action), bupe for pain and prazosin, an antispasmodic for urethral spasm. She trusted me to use these as needed - which I rarely did. Watch and wait worked 99% of the time.
 
My Dwee would get so distressed, he would literally not stay out of the litter for more than a minute, was constantly licking down there, peeing nothing but a trickle of blood and even one time growled while doing so from the pain. No watching and waiting in that case!
 
Three days into the cosequin and bupenorphine treatment, she did it again. :( I'm now trying to get her in before the weekend for imaging to test for stones and/or tumors. Of course it's the weekend again, and it's doubtful they'll be able to see her today, but they will give me a prescription for additional painkillers to get her through until Monday.

From this board I have gotten the impression that the meds she's been taking tend to clear the problem right up if it's stress/inflammation, so I'm braced for bad news.
 
TooSweetKittyMom said:
Three days into the cosequin and bupenorphine treatment, she did it again. :( I'm now trying to get her in before the weekend for imaging to test for stones and/or tumors. Of course it's the weekend again, and it's doubtful they'll be able to see her today, but they will give me a prescription for additional painkillers to get her through until Monday.

From this board I have gotten the impression that the meds she's been taking tend to clear the problem right up if it's stress/inflammation, so I'm braced for bad news.
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Yes, they can help treat the symptoms BUT the stress/inflammation syndrome is relapsing and remitting in nature in some kitties.
 
She had another episode on Sunday, fitting the pattern of every 2-3 days. I took her in on Monday for X-ray, ultrasound, and urine testing. No sign of stones, growths, tumors, clots, etc. Urine drawn through needle was unremarkable; voided sample had a few red blood cells but no real blood, which was interesting; whatever's going on seems to affect the urethra but not the bladder. They sent me home with gabapantin, Cosequin, and Ammonil. 24 hours later one of the samples (not sure which one) showed some e-coli, so they advised Convenia shots to clear it up. We didn't want to give her an oral that might upset her stomach and make her less likely to eat.

So, six hours after the Convenia and while under the influence of gabapantin, she had another episode. Into the box, pee a tiny amount, get out, lick lick lick, repeat. This went on for over an hour as I watched until I couldn't take it any more and just left for a while. Now I'm back; she's settled back down, no longer visiting the box, but one of the small clumps does have a small drop of blood on it. For what it's worth, the episodes do seem to be getting progressively less bloody; compared to the murder scene I thought I was seeing two weeks ago, one drop is nothing. But it means it's not over yet, and I'm about at the end of my wits. The only thing left to do is imaging for the urethra, which would involve dye and sedation and yet more $$$$$, and it likely wouldn't change anything about the treatment anyway, as I wouldn't put her through surgery.

I haven't observed these episodes in progress every time, but it seems like once the blood finally appears she is more comfortable. It's almost as if some sort of cyst builds up every couple of days and makes her uncomfortable until it finally ruptures, and then she's fine.

Is this at all consistent with stress peeing, or do I just need to do the dye test and find out conclusively what's going on with the urethra?

Also, after doing a casual Google search for Convenia, I'm braced for terrible side effects on that too. I'm starting to wonder if this little girl is going to live long enough for me to learn how to do home testing. It feels like everything I've tried to do for her since January has backfired into a new problem.
 
TooSweetKittyMom said:
She had another episode on Sunday, fitting the pattern of every 2-3 days. I took her in on Monday for X-ray, ultrasound, and urine testing. No sign of stones, growths, tumors, clots, etc. Urine drawn through needle was unremarkable; voided sample had a few red blood cells but no real blood, which was interesting; whatever's going on seems to affect the urethra but not the bladder. They sent me home with gabapantin, Cosequin, and Ammonil. 24 hours later one of the samples (not sure which one) showed some e-coli, so they advised Convenia shots to clear it up. We didn't want to give her an oral that might upset her stomach and make her less likely to eat.

So, six hours after the Convenia and while under the influence of gabapantin, she had another episode. Into the box, pee a tiny amount, get out, lick lick lick, repeat. This went on for over an hour as I watched until I couldn't take it any more and just left for a while. Now I'm back; she's settled back down, no longer visiting the box, but one of the small clumps does have a small drop of blood on it. For what it's worth, the episodes do seem to be getting progressively less bloody; compared to the murder scene I thought I was seeing two weeks ago, one drop is nothing. But it means it's not over yet, and I'm about at the end of my wits. The only thing left to do is imaging for the urethra, which would involve dye and sedation and yet more $$$$$, and it likely wouldn't change anything about the treatment anyway, as I wouldn't put her through surgery.

I haven't observed these episodes in progress every time, but it seems like once the blood finally appears she is more comfortable. It's almost as if some sort of cyst builds up every couple of days and makes her uncomfortable until it finally ruptures, and then she's fine.

Is this at all consistent with stress peeing, or do I just need to do the dye test and find out conclusively what's going on with the urethra?

Also, after doing a casual Google search for Convenia, I'm braced for terrible side effects on that too. I'm starting to wonder if this little girl is going to live long enough for me to learn how to do home testing. It feels like everything I've tried to do for her since January has backfired into a new problem.
Click to expand...

My kitty had s bloody urinary tract infection two years ago , they injected her with an anti-inflammatory ( i also remember they gave me something to give her as well in an oral syringe). But the anti inflammatory worked wonders

Not sure if it Helps but thought I would mention it
 
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