Blood in stool.

Hi, this is going to be a really long question so my apologies in advance, but we have tried so many different things and I want to detail all of them here.

Our cat Mithu is 13 years old, she is an indoor cat (never goes outside). For the last 3 weeks she has been having various digestion problems, and we have been unable to find out what the cause is. She had her routine annual vet check up about 4 weeks ago, blood test, x ray, ECG etc and everything came up normal. The only minor problem was that she was a little dehydrated.

About a week after her routine check up, she started losing her appetite and we found a few bright red drops of blood in her stool with a visible amount of whitish mucous. We immediately took her to the vet, and he gave her a de working pill which she took. This immediately improved her appetite,(she eats very lean beef,which we give her raw after rinsing it in hot water, she has eaten the same food since she was a kitten) but she still continued to have the mucous and blood in her stools. The vet then asked us to put her on Metronidazole (Flagyl)40mg a day for 5 days. Her stool quality immediately improved and the blood and mucous was almost gone, however after about 3 days on the Metronidazole she developed a severe stomache ache, which is really making her uncomfortable and we are unable to even touch her as she is in a lot of pain.

Surprisingly her appetite is still almost normal, as soon as the stomach pain started we found that she had to strain a lot while passing her stool and very often only a few small coin size drops of watery stool came out sometimes this has a drop of blood and mucous present. However after a few hours of this episode she then passes her normal stool which looks normal in size, colour and content. So we are really at a loss as to what is happening to her.

When the stomach pain started our vet asked us to put her on a 3 day course of Ranitidine 30mg a day, this seems to immediately relieve her stomach ache as she becomes her usual friendly palyful self again, but in a few hours the pain seems to start again. We again had a few drops of blood and some mucous in her stool yesterday. We spoke to our vet again this morning as he has asked us to wait until tomorrow, and if she is not better he has asked her to take a 3 day course of 3 injections. The injections prescribed are:

1. Ceftriaxone injection 150 mg x 3 days
2. Styptochrome injection (Adrenochrome Monosemicarbazone) 0.3ml x 3 days
3. Ranitidine injection 0.2ml x 3 days

He seems to think she just has some kind of bacterial infection and he does not seem to worried as he says her recent blood reports and x rays all looked normal. We have been quite worried as we have been looking up her symptoms on the internet and thought she may have some kind a tumour or something, but the vet does not seem to think so. We have had her x ray checked by two vets and both of them say it is normal.

Could you please tell us what the problem could be and if the medicines (injections) he has prescribed are ok for her to take?

Thank you so much,

Vishnu

Dear Dr. Marie,

Thank you for your response and sorry for being so late in replying, we have spent the last 10 days giving Mithu various tests, injections etc and our vet lives about 300 kms from us so we just got home last night. Basically the vet did the following tests on her:

1. Complete body examination to check for sign of pain - none found

2. Contrast radiograph using a barium sulphate solution - no growths or injuries found in the stomach

3. Fecal analysis and fecal culture test - found evidence of blood and puss cells in stool and culture test revealed the presence of e coli bacteria in the stool sample

Based on the above findings he has given her a course of antibiotic injections over the last 5 days to overcome the e coli bacterial infection. Based on his examination and testing he says she does not have a tumour and it is a severe bacterial infection which could have arisen from the fact that she eats almost raw beef.

He has given her Ceftriaxone and Cefotaxime injections (as the test showed that e coli bacteria were sensitve to these antibiotics) along with ranatidine for the last 6 days, and her stomach pain has gone, the content of blood and mucous in her stool has reduced by about 65 - 70% and her appetite is normal.

She still has some blood in her stool and we have sent a sample to be tested again yesterday. She does however have a lot of hair in her stool. Her stool cycle has become regular now and she does not seem to be struggling to defecate and there is no sign of straining anymore either. Do you think it could have been just the bacterial infection which caused all this trouble? Our vet has also advised us to try and switch her over to regular cat food(like whiskas, royal canin etc), do you think this is advisable for her?

Thank you so much for all your help and advise.

Vishnu