Blood Disorders in Cats

Blood disorders are those which affect the quality of the blood in your cat. There are various different disorders which can affect the consistency of the blood and the ability of the blood to flow normally. Although not all blood disorders are fatal, they often can be if they are not treated promptly. Likewise, most disorders of the blood are something that will stay with your cat indefinitely.

Feline Anemia

Feline anemia occurs when the red blood cell count of the blood is to low and the blood becomes extremely thin. Although this is not a particularly common disorder in cats, it usually occurs in the aftermath of some other condition.

Red blood cells carry hemoglobin; which is responsible for carrying oxygen to various parts of the body. When there are not enough red blood cells in the body, it inevitably means that your cat is not getting enough oxygen to the critical organs in his body.

In addition, because the conditions of anemia lead the blood to become thinner, there is not an adequate count of platelets available in the blood. When this happens, your cat can have problems with excessive bleeding in the cases of scabs, bites, wounds or injuries. This can be very dangerous to your cat as it can cause him to bleed to death because there is not enough platelets in the blood to stop effectively stop the bleeding.

Dysfunction of Platelets

There are two types of blood disorders concerning platelets: thrombocytopenia and thrombocytopathy. The blood consists of platelets; which are used to clot the blood when there is a leak or wound somewhere in the body. Although too much clotting is not good, the inability to clot is just as dangerous.

Thrombocytopenia is a blood condition in which there is not a sufficient amount of platelets flowing through the blood. Platelets not only help the blood to clot in cases of injury, but they also repair any damage or tearing of blood vessels throughout the body. When thrombocytopenia is present, it means that if there are any ruptures or tears in the walls of the blood vessels, there will not be enough platelets in the blood to clot or repair the tear. This can cause excessive internal bleeding and lead to death.

Thrombocytopathy is a blood condition in which there is a high enough count of platelets in the blood, but the platelets do not function as they should. Platelets are meant to clot the blood by clumping together when repairing internal blood vessels or at the site of a wound. When the platelets in the blood do not clump together, there can be excessive levels of bleeding because the blood is not clotting as it normally would.

Both of these blood disorders can lead to the development of Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy; which occurs when the failure of the blood to clot properly affects the walls of the blood vessels in the heart.

 

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