cat with bruising

hi, i have a cat who got spayed last wednesday and she didnt have an issue with it until last night, when she started licking it a little bit. i, of course, stopped her and kept an eye on her, but today i pick her up to check and see that she has bruising outside the incision. is this something i need to worry about? she doesnt seem to be in pain, and it doesnt really look infected, but I'd much rather be safe than sorry. thank you!

It's been so long since I had a cat spayed, that I don't remember if she bruised or not.  Hopefully someone who has more recent experience can weigh in on this.  However, it would not hurt to email a copy of that picture to your vet for some feedback.   Sending vibes that all is well. 

Yikes! Contact the vet, for sure. Tybalt acted like his rear end was tender when he was neutered, but if there was any bruising, I wouldn't have been able to see through his dark fur. He had a spot between the testicles and the anus that was red, like your girl has on her belly, from the incision, but as always, it healed and was fine.

Hopefully my post will bump you up on the feed for someone to notice, and I'm sorry I couldn't help more!

In the meantime, I'll snoop and do research for you.

That doesn't look good to me - I don't think the incision site should be that red. I'm thinking possible infection Definitely get her to the vet to be checked out.

Okay, I did some research and it didn't take as long as expected!

It is possible that what you are looking at is blood seepage under the skin from the surgery, and is surprisingly common. From the photos I've just looked at this is not an extreme case at all, but what concerns me is that it's nearly been a week after her surgery. It could be that she's messed with it while you weren't looking (I'm not blaming you, cats can just be sneaky) and caused a bit of bruising in the process. Hopefully your vet can get back to you or someone else can chime in!

I would get that incisson looked at by a vet. It looks too red and a little bit too puffy to me. One of my cats got an infection in her spay incisson years ago. The vet had to drain the infection and she was on antibiotics. My cat's incision did not have any drainage and she was acting completely normal. I noticed things did not look right when I caught her licking it.

I agree with others, I think you should take her to the vet and get it looked at.