Bloody Hairball

Hi everyone,

I have 2 cats (sisters) and they are just a little over a year old.

On Sunday I discovered a large hairball and what appeared to be a large amount of blood in it. But both cats seemed to be perfectly fine, they were eating, playing and drinking. Yesterday when I came home from work I found cat vomit with blood and I found blood in one of their stools. Unfortunately I don't know which cat it is. I tried going to the vet today only to be told that the veterinarian won't be back in until tomorrow, so I have an appointment at 9am.

Here's some background on the cats.

Oreo

She coughed up hairballs in the past, not alot, but some. Does not liked to be picked up and gets scared very easily. She did have a cut on her nose when I adopted her in March but its healed up nicely.

Dusty

I think Dusty is the most likely culprit. She's never coughed up a hairball that I've seen. She's had coughing fits (nothing comes up) since I adopted her in March. Usually it occurs a couple of times a week. I contacted the animal rescue group I adopted her from and they said it was probably an upper respiratory infection and gave me some pills to give her. The coughing continued, at one point it was every day, so I took her down to the vet and they told me it was a cold. Since when she sneezes a large amount of snot comes out of her and hangs down over her mouth and chin, and the little furball licks it up before I can get it off of her, grrr. So they gave me L-Lysine HCL Oral Powder to help boost Dusty and Oreos immune system. The coughing still happens though and has me concerned.

I haven't changed anything in their food. And cat treats well... they don't understand treats. I've bought a bunch of different brands and Oreo might eat the odd treat, but Dusty won't. Usually they just ignore the treats. They eat both hard and wet food for their meals though.

Both of them are still playing and eating, etc. So maybe I'm just being paranoid.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

 

The vet is a good idea, even if you have to bring both in to figure out who is having trouble.  Blood is never good and cats are very good at hiding pain.

Hi,

Sorry for the late update. I had the vet look at both cats and they both seemed to be fine to her. However the bloody stool I brought in, turned out to be cat diarrhea.
For now the vet gave them medicine for worms (due to Dustys coughing fits), and special food.

Oreo was put on I/D Digestive Care (because she won't eat pate, and this is a bit chunkier)
Dusty was put on Royal Canin Gastrointestional
I was also given FortiFlora to mix in to the wet food.

They're supposed to be on this food only for a straight week. However they've barely been eating any of it since Sunday. I had no other choice but to put hard food down as I didn't want my babies to starve.

I found a lot of diarrhea in the litter box today when I came home from work. I've moved the box near my desk to try and catch which one is sick.

Oreos personality has also changed over the last few days. Shes always been the kind of cat that likes to be left alone, but on Sunday she suddenly wanted constant attention and kept crying when I was in a different room. Yesterday she was running around in circles, licking her back legs and stomach and then running into another room. This happened multiple times. Then when it came time to play with her feather stick, she played with it for about 5min before running and hiding in the other room. (Normally she plays with this for a bout 45min every night) And today shes constantly terrified of me, and keeps hiding under the bed or dresser.

Maybe I'm just being paranoid.

The vet is closed until Monday, when they reopen they're supposed to give me a call for an update, and if there's no change by then then it on to test B (feline leukemia) and possible test C (X-rays).

So I got my proof this morning that Oreo is the one with the diarrhea. After she had gone to the litter box she went into another room and would start licking herself and then her whole back would suddenly twitch. Sometimes she would run when that happened and other times she would just freeze. This happened multiple over times over the next hour.

When I left for work a couple hours later she seemed a bit better but was still trying to hide.