What do you think of my cat's diagnosis?

[clockworkgirl21]

I took my cat to the vet because he's had diarrhea, blood in his stool, and hair loss.

The vet said she thinks it's probably fleas. We've never seen a flea on him, and we have put flea collars on him before but he somehow gets them off. The vet couldn't see any fleas on him either, but says the patches of balding skin by his tail is a red flag for fleas because that's where cats always dig and itch at them. Then the hair he licks off irritates his digestive system and that's where the blood comes from. She doesn't think it's from a serious injury because he doesn't have blood for every bowel movement. She also says that's the most common reason for cats having bloody stools.

I'm not saying this isn't it, but have you heard of this?

The cat isn't acting sick or different at all.

[tgrwulf]

Move his fur the wrong way and look at his skin around the fur. If you see what looks like someone shook pepper on him, then he's got fleas. That's called "flea dirt" and it's the dried blood from the fleas biting the animal. I would especially check around where he's really raw. If you don't see any "flea dirt" anywhere on his body, then he probably doesn't have fleas.

That is by far one of the easiest methods of checking for fleas. It can also be made easier by buying a flea comb from your local pet supplies store. It's a comb that's rediculously fine, and makes it much easier to spot fleas and ticks.

As for the loose stool and blood, that's new to me, but I'm also no vet, so...

[clockworkgirl21]

I couldn't see any pepper spots, but as I said, Echo's black, so it's pretty difficult to tell.

Today, Echo threw up what looked like melted chocolate/vanilla ice cream. In fact, when I first saw it, I thought that's what it was. I called the vet, and she thinks it might be irritable bowel syndrome. She still wants to give the first medicine a few days to work before treating IBS, though. She says as long as Echo's eating properly and acting normal, I don't need to panic.

Ugh, I hate it when my pets are sick!

[canadian mojo]

A good way to check for flea dander is to put the cat on something light coloured and give it a good fur tussle for a couple of minutes, particularly up around the shoulder blades where it is hard to groom. If there is black stuff on the ground, you've got fleas.

We've got one cat who shows no outward signs of fleas; he doesn't scratch or anything. He just starts getting sick like your vet described. The 'pepper' on the ground is the only way we can tell for sure what is wrong.