Hello, my parents' 10 year old male ginger British short hair cat just had a small amount of bright red blood coming from his anus. He seems fine in himself, except since they got him 5 months ago from a shelter, he has overgroomed. The shelter sent my parents his vet records when they adopted him, which says he has been overgrooming since June 2021, and it was noted that it was likely stress that triggered it since the owners had just moved house. It says he was overgrooming on his abdomen. When my parents adopted him in May 2022, his abdomen was completely bald, along with the base of his tail, around his anus and the insides of his back legs. The fur on his abdomen has since grown back, but he is still grooming on the base of his tail, around the anus, and now occasionally on his back. This includes him biting the areas sometimes, as well as licking. He also scratches his ears sometimes. We believed the grooming was due to stress, since he is a nervous cat, but now worried the blood could be related.
He also has kidney disease, we believe early stage 2. He was eating dry renal food while at the shelter. My parents tried him on the renal wet food, but he didn't like it, and was sick when he did eat it. My mum rang the shelter, and they said that he could eat normal food if Ipakitine was added to it (Although, on his vet notes, his phosphorous was in the normal range when he had a blood test in February 2022) So my mum has been feeding him Sheba, with one heaped scoop of Ipakitine added, plus some water added to his food to help with hydration for the kidney disease.
He isn't being sick or had diarrhoea. We couldn't see any visible blood in his faeces when we looked just now, although it is difficult to tell as he covers it up. But he hadn't had diarrhoea. He hasn't been sick, except a couple of weeks ago when my dad got the wrong food by mistake, with jelly instead of gravy. He is a very affectionate cat, but also nervous. He used to run as soon as anyone stood up when my parents first got him, but he has improved a lot recently. He has a good appetite, isn't losing weight, seems fine in himself. But looking back, I have thought before that his anus seemed sort of pink and slightly wet at the opening, but had just assumed it was normal. So I don't know if he has had bleeding before and just cleaned it before we have noticed. He is an indoor cat. My parents are going to take him to the vet very soon, but what could be the possible causes of this? Could the Ipakitine be causing constipation? I couldn't find much information about that. How likely is it to be IBD, if he doesn't have sickness or diarrhoea? How would a vet test for IBD?
On his vet records, it says he had a small amount of frank red blood and mucus on semiformed stool when he was 1 year old, and he was treated as for colitis, with a bland diet and parasite treatment, and no more issues like this were noted since then. This time though, he hasn't had mucus or semiformed stool, so I assume this has a different cause. Thank you in advance
Report