Tuffy is bleeding!!

Hi, Yes the vet knows he is going to the hospital, the hospital called the vets office to get some history and to have them fax all his records up to them. The vet is the one who suggested I try the Hills ZD food, but to change him over real slow to it.

We were camping last weekend and some friends were also camping there just down a few sites from us. The live down by the park in town here where Tuffy found me last year, They saw Tuffy and recognized him, They said he would come to there house every few days and they would feed him, so at least someone was helping him a little back then, but then they said he stopped coming around and figured the worst. They were shocked to see him again when I carried him outside at the camp site, they were amazed how good he looks now.

Hi again, sorry to drag out this topic more than I have.

I have been doing some reading on feline inflammitory bowel disease and most of the common symptoms don't really fit Tuffy's bleeding problem. They talk about vomiting as a major symptom which he don't do, and bad diarea which so far he don't have, he has soft stools but he don't go many times a day like he did when he had worms. It also don't talk about blood in the stool or anemia.

I don't mean to second guess the vets that have looked at him since all this started, but I am now wondering if he really has IBD or is something else going on? I sure hope we find out what is going on when he goes to the specialist on the 18th.

Is there anyone on here that has had a cat with IBD and did your kitty have blood in his stool and red blood sometimes from its butt?

Sorry for all the questions, I am just trying to learn about what might be going on with Tuffy. I get so worried sometimes that Yvonne has to comfort me and tell me Tuffy will be ok, and that he came back from being much sicker than he is now which is true and why I named him Tuffy, the last vet said Tuffy was the perfect name for him after he read most of his records and seen what he has been through. I would be crushed to find out he had some kind of problem that could be fatal after going through so much with him.

I probably shouldn't have posted this untill after his hospital trip when I know more about whats going on, but it helps me to talk with others who know what its like to be so attatched to there kitty cats, This site has been great to me and I have learned so much from asking things and just sitting and reading for hours sometimes.

Tom, I think the U/S will tell a lot, though your vet should also be able to get a bit of an idea by palpation - they can feel if the intestines are thickened (ropey is one description my vet has used with my cats who have had IBD).

I've had several cats with IBD - some vomitted occasionally, diarhea was not an issue, bloody mucous was something I would see, blood from the rectum was not.

It's just Ultrasound time, I think it will tell a lot. Keeping fingers crossed for an answer, a treatment and a totally healthy Tuffy.

I have seen him in the litter box a couple times the last few days. I didn't see any blood but his diarea has got worse, but I think that is because of the iams food, so I only give him a little of the iams stuff so he has to go back to the nutro when he gets hungry. Looking back on everything all this bleeding started when he started to eat Missy's wet cheap Wal-Mart food, but it has been a long time since he has had any of that stuff. I guess all I can do is wait till the 18th and see what they think.

Pat & Alix, The vet did feel up his belly but didn't say what he was looking for or if he felt anything odd. He also listened to his belly area with his scope for a long time but didn't say anything to me about it.

A tip...
Write down your questions before you go to a vet appointment.
Be sure they are all answered before you leave.

When you have new questions after you return home...
Call ASAP and talk to a tech....
If that doesn't help ask to have the Vet call you.

You are Tuffy's advocate....
Knowledge is power.

First of all, I certainly hope you find the source of Tufry's bleeding and why he is anemic. This has gone on a long time.
And I also want to say, Tuffy is the cutest thing I have ever seen in that dog harness. I hope he doesn't know he is wearing "dog clothes"...

Please keep posting on his updates.

Jenn

There is some blood on the bed where he was laying tonight again, so I guess the meds are not helping him much. Not allot of blood but still blood just the same.

I don't understand why but I am getting mad about the whole bleeding thing tonight. Probably because worrying about Tuffy is depressing me and I don't feel like doing other projects around here I need to get done. I am not mad at Tuffy or the vets, Just mad because its one problem after another this year I guess.

Hi, Tuffy did great with his ride to the animal hospital today, The DR was impressed with him to. She told me when she did his exam and did some kind of rectal exam that most cats try to climb the walls to get away, she said Tuffy didn't hardly fight at all.

We don't know much more than before right now, she seen something in his past blood tests she didn't like and checked it again today and it is still high. I am sorry but we talked about so much and she used words I never heard before so I can't tell you exactly what the problem is right now. If I understood her she is testing to see if the things in his blood are the same or a mix of different types, I think she used the word globuals [sp?] or something like that, she was trying to dumb it down for me to understand. She said if these things are all the same type it gives her more of a clue as to what to look for than if these things are all different types.

She don't think as of right now he has IBD, but has not totaly ruled it out. She said he don't seem to be loosing enough blood in his bowels to make him as enimic as he is, so another of the blood tests she is doing is to check for sure he is making new blood or not. She won't have the blood work back for a day or two, so depending on what the tests show he might have to go back in a few days for a ultra sound.

She did say after the rectal exam she didn't find anything other than his bleeding is not from a local spot, but it was seeping from a large area of his bowels. She also hasn't ruled out some kind of worm that is real hard to detect.

She put him on metronidazole for 7 days in case there is some wierd infection going on in him, She figured it would be a good start to try and help him till she can learn more. The tests she is doing are CBC+differential MF, Reticulocyte count MF, and Protien electrophoresis MF, It says 2 Vettest's on the bill also, I don't know if that is a kind of test or just means they did 2 tests there?

So bottom line it could be as simples as some kind of worm, to worst case she will need to get a bone sample if he is not making good blood cells to see why. She right now seems to me to be more worried as to why he is enimic over the diarea and the bleeding, because she didn't think he was loosing enough blood to make him enimic, she said unless he is loosing more blood than she thinks, but she was going on what I have seen for how much he bleeds and how much blood she got on the rectal exam. She also talked a little about feline FIP I think it was, I don't know what that is, I will have to do a search on the puter and read up on it. I really hope its just some worms or something like that and not something really bad, The poor little guy has gone through so much already, I would be crushed to find out he has some kind of cancerous tumor or something like that.

So I have to wait till she calls me when she gets his blood work back before we know whats going to happen next. She asked if I wanted to have the ultra sound done today also but that on top of all the other stuff would have been way to much for me to pay for in one shot.

She didn't think he is in enough danger right now that holding off on the ultra sound for a little while would be a problem. She said that depending on what the other tests tell her Tuffy might not need a ultra sound if she can figure out what is going on. With what they did today and if they had done a ultra sound his bill would have been around $650. It cost me $306 today without the ultra sound, don't take it the wrong way, I want Tuffy to be as healthy as he can be first and cost second not cost first. They have some deal with some other place that will help pay vet bills and then you pay them back so much a month, depending on how all this goes and if it gets to be to expensive for us I will have to look into this payment deal I guess.

So I have my fingers crossed that Tuffy will be ok in the end. He don't deserve all this, I think he has suffered enough already. He is my special Kitty.

Sounds like a very thorough exam, please let us know what the tests show, and give Tuffy a skritch from me.

We were there from 2:45 to after 5:00 today so she spent allot of time with me and looking over Tuffy. I tied to give Tuffy his new med tonight and he made a bunch of frothy looking stuff and he spit it all back up. [its in liquid form] Didn't I get it in his mouth far enough? I gave it the same as I have always gave him meds but he has never done this before.

I have to wait to try again because he will give me one shot to give him his meds, if I miss he won't give me a second chance. They gave the stuff some chicken flavor. Maybe I can put a little of his vitamin in the syringe with the new med to make it taste better.

I got a call from Tuffy's vet today. They still don't know for sure what is wrong with him. They want to try some iron supplement along with the metronidazole for a while to see if he gets better. There are allot of tests they can do that will get real expensive and then they still might not have all the answers. So I guess all I can do for now is give him his meds and watch him close. I wish I had better news.


Tom

Hi, Today I got a copy of the papers the hospital sent to Tuffy's vet. I noticed that globulin count has been going up every time they check it. Back in November 2005 it was 5.7, 6-22-06 it was 6.4, and last Tuesday it was 7.0.

One test shows polyclonal gammopathy, it says "this type of globulin elevation is most consistent with chronic inflamitory disease or infectious disease [such as FIP] neoplasia such as lymphoma and plasma cell neoplasia are less likely given this electrophoresis pattern"

His last CBC was 27%, on 6-22-06 it was 24%, so he is a little better than he was at least.

I have no idea what all this is saying, but maybe someone here will know what all this stuff means.

Tom, we're really pulling for Tuffy here. I do think that your vet needs to break these things down in lay terms for you and be very, very direct and very honest so you have all the data you need to make educated choices for the welfare of Tuffy.

I totally agree with asking the vet to use terms you understand .. With knowledgeable pet owners many vets forget we didnt go thru vet school

I hope your kitty feels better. Giving a prayer and crossing fingers for tuffy to feel alll better.

Hi all, We got back from our camping trip tonight and Tuffy did good again, I have some more pictures of him outside. Nothing new to report on Tuffy other wise. His poop was a little firmer than it had been but last night he still had some blood after he went, not as much as before but still there. This morning when he used the litter box I didn't see any blood so it don't happen everytime. If I had to guess he has red blood dripping about every 4th time he poops.

He really likes the Z/D low allergen cat food, he eats that now instead of the Nutro, so at least that is not a problem to get him to eat it and most of the other cats don't like the Z/D so I have a bowl of the Z/D in our bedroom just for Tuffy so he can eat when he wants and the others are not eating the special and kind of expencive food all up.

He will be done with that horrible smelling and tasting med he was on for a week tomorrow. I don't know how much of it we really got into him because I had a hard time to get him to swallow the stuff. I would give him the med and then hold his mouth shut to get him to swallow it but most of the time he would just push allot of the med back out his mouth even while I was hold his mouth closed, it would just come back out all along his mouth. Yvonne tried it today while I held him and she got the stuff back in his mouth a little farther than I can doing it myself and he swallowed most of it.

I am having the same problem with getting the iron supplement [sp?] in him. So I an going to wait on the iron stuff till he is done with the other horrible med tomorrow [Monday] and then work on the other stuff, maybe when he figures out he is not getting that bad smelling stuff anymore he will not fight so hard and take the supplement.

I got some more papers in the mail from the animal hospital with more info, I don't have them in front of me right now but I will post some more of what the Vet at the hospital thinks we should do next. She is leaning toward some kind of chronic or inflamitory problem from his tests, I assume she means a form of IBD. She also said something about his blood cells being smaller than they should be which goes along with his iron weak blood which in turn would make it easier for him to bleed from the IBD.

I hope I explained all this right from what I read on the reports. I will double check tomorrow and update everyone if I got it wrong tonight.

Here are 2 excellent videos that show how to give liquid medication and pills or capsules to a cat.

http://www.felinevideos.vet.cornell....ll_or_capsule/

http://www.felinevideos.vet.cornell....d_medications/

I hope that they help.

to you and Tuffy.....

My late cat was a diabetic and I know what a pain it can be to give the uncooperative fur kids in our lives meds... For the iron pill you can try something called Pill Pockets. Here's a link http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...260581-2808100

I used to give Pushka a few empty ones a day as a treat and then one with her pills in them... Sneaky, but it worked.

Its tough when your critters are sick and you have to worry about moola too. I've been there and I know that Tuffy appreciates everything you're doing for him - esp the camping

Here is a couple of pictures from last weekend. We were at county park not to far from home. There was 3 other campers/motor homes there with us. I had to put Tuffy's blanket in the chair for him or he would not stay outside. He is so spoiled, I think he owns me instead of me owning Tuffy.

The lady in the wheel chair broke her ankle real bad about 3 weeks ago, she was also taking pictures of Tuffy. She and her husband used to feed Tuffy when he was still a stray before I ended up with him. They live just a block or so from where Tuffy found me last August.

I have a little good news with Tuffy, I had him camping since Thursday afternoon and I didn't see any blood, and yesterday afternoon I watched him in the litter box and his poop is starting to form up again and look allot more normal. I gave up on the iron supplement because he just hates it and I went back to the pet-tinic [I think its called] because he did so good on it before and he don't mind the taste. It also has allot of iron in it but not as much as the ferrous sulfate stuff, and the sulfate stuff also has 5.3 % alcohol in it which I was suprised to see.

So I have my fingers crossed that he will keep getting better and he won't have to go through any more tests.

He didn't want to go in the motor home this time for some reason. He complained to me on the way and talked to me for a half hour after we got there. It was just down at the park in town were I got him from so it wasn't a long ride or someplace new. We had to rush to get everything put away and picked up early this morning because we had some bad storms go over us with trees down all over town. Yvonne had her truck there so she put Tuffy in her truck and ran him home before it got real bad and he calmed down then. Maybe he knew back on Thursday it was going to storm out so thats why he was complaining so much to me when we left home?? Normaly he likes to go camping with us.