Blood from the cat's anus. Causes and treatment

2024 Author: Priscilla Miln | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 00:21

If your pet's behavior has changed dramatically, she has become apathetic, painful in appearance, and if blood suddenly appears from the cat's anus, this may all be due to the fact that the animal has pancreatitis. You can learn more about the disease and how to cure it from this article.

What is pancreatitis?

What can cause a cat to bleed from under its tail? In the vast majority of cases, this is pancreatitis, a very common gastrointestinal disorder in pets. Previously, scientists believed that cats were much less susceptible to this disease than dogs, but the most recent research suggests otherwise.

Unfortunately, in most cases, pancreatitis in a cat goes unnoticed until there are clear signs of the disease.

Pancreas function

The pancreas in cats performs two functions at once. It is an endocrine organ that produces hormones that regulate bodily functions. And also the exocrine organ is a source of enzymes,necessary for the digestion of food in the stomach.

There are many problems with the proper functioning of the pancreas that can occur in animals. The endocrine part can fail in terms of balanced hormone production. The most common example is diabetes. In this case, the pancreas does not produce enough insulin.

There are also many common diseases caused by problems with the exocrine part. The pancreas can stop producing enough enzymes, which in turn causes a condition called exocrine pancreatic insufficiency. In this case, the pancreas becomes inflamed due to the fact that the enzymes that should enter the digestive tract remain in the gland itself and begin to corrode it from the inside. This causes blood from the cat's anus.

Mechanical injury, infections, parasites, idiosyncratic reactions to certain drugs are most often named by doctors as the most likely causes of the disease. But there is still no clear understanding of what causes pancreatitis in cats.

Most of the cases (>90%) cannot be caused by only one specific cause. The risk of pathology is higher in Siamese cats, as they are more predisposed to it at the genetic level.

Clinical signs of pancreatitis in cats

The clinical signs of the described disease are quite diverse and usually differ fromsigns of pancreatitis in dogs. The latter show vomiting and signs of abdominal pain, while in cats, the disease manifests itself as little or no appetite, lethargy, sudden weight loss, dehydration, and diarrhea. Vomiting and abdominal pain can also be signs of pancreatitis in cats.

Unfortunately, these animals often have chronic pancreatitis. Feline pancreatitis is less acute than in dogs, but lasts longer. In some cases, when the disease gets out of control, it can affect not only the gastrointestinal tract, but also other parts of the body. For example, the respiratory system can be severely affected.

Pancreatitis is a very serious disease, and if the owner of a pet sees blood from the anus of a cat, he should immediately take the animal to the veterinarian.

Diagnosis of pancreatitis

Diagnosing pancreatitis has been a problem for decades. The main difficulty is that the disease cannot be diagnosed only on the basis of clinical signs, since lethargy, lack of appetite, dehydration, vomiting and diarrhea are signs of many other diseases that have nothing to do with pancreatitis.

Another factor that greatly complicates the detection of the disease is that pancreatitis almost always occurs in parallel with some other ailment (most often associated with liver disease).

A few years ago was developed and introduceda new method of examination that allows you to clearly understand how well the pancreas produces digestive enzymes, and how much they enter the stomach.

There is another very high quality test that allows you to understand more about the condition of the animal's pancreas. Its name is the Pancreatic Immunoreactivity Test. As experimental and clinical experiments have shown, the test very well demonstrates the presence or absence of an inflammatory process in the pancreas of a cat. It is carried out in the form of a routine blood test.

Treatment

Treating pancreatitis in cats can be as difficult as diagnosing the disease. Constant care and attention to the pet is the most important point in therapy. First of all, the owner of a sick animal must do everything to remove the causes that could potentially provoke the development of the disease.

Regular intravenous therapy is also an important aspect of treatment. Medicines to prevent vomiting and relieve pain are a must. If an infection is suspected as the cause of the disease, antibiotics should be used. Appetite stimulants should be given to an animal with a complete lack of desire to eat.

In most cases, with proper treatment, the pet fully recovers from the disease and returns to normal life. And yet, possible relapses will always be a potential problem, so the owner should always keep a close eye on him. If there is blood from the anus of a cat, you should immediately take the animal to the hospital.