Bruising in cats for no apparent reason is a signal that something may be seriously wrong with your pet and can have three different underlying causes. This bruising may be associated with a systematic disorder or an illness and the signs that you may see can range from a very small bruise or symptoms that indicate that your pets life may be to the point of being jeopardized.

However, what ever the actual cause is, bruising, even if the reason is understood, should always be treated as a very serious threat and should never be ignored.

In fact, if the reason is from unknown cause, you should contact your veterinarian immediately as the chances are very high that your cat will start to become pale, weak, or extremely distressed. Bruising in cats is not a normal condition and should be treated as seriously as panting or coughing.

The severity of the bruising will all depend on the amount of blood that is being lost and can affect any part of your cats body. Bleeding disorders are almost always the cause of the bruising, but it is very important to understand that what you are seeing as a sudden bruise in your pet is only what appears on the surface on their skin, membranes, mouth, nose, or the areas around the eyes.

The bruising that you do see can be much more serious.

Symptoms:

There are several symptoms that you can watch for with bruising in cats, and some will be different forms of bruising while others will be signs of internal bruising and bleeding.

The first symptoms will of course be the sudden appearance of bruises or swelling that is located on or under your cats skin. However, there are other forms of bruising that you will need to watch for that are not as apparent. The first will be a very small dot, almost simulating a small spot the size of a needle, or a small hemorrhage that suddenly appears on your pets gums.

You may also see this same small dot suddenly appear and than spread in your cats whites of their eyes or on the inside of the eyelids. Once these symptoms do occur, you may also see two other very telling symptoms; bleeding the starts to seep in your cats front eye chamber as well as nose bleeds.

If the bruising and bleeding is internal, you will see a sudden appearance of blood in the urine or the stool, and your cats gums will also start to turn pale as the result of anemia. However, perhaps the most chilling of all symptoms and a real warning sign will be a wound or a cut that will bleed so profusely that you can not get it stopped. At this point, the initial bruising has turned into a very dangerous situation for your cat.

Causes:

Bruising in cats is the result of bleeding disorders that affect the clotting process of your pets blood as it can not properly coagulate. It can be the result of a clotting factor disorder, but it can also be caused by platelet disorders as well as vessel wall disorders. The actual clotting process of your cats blood takes place when the platelets, which are very small particles of blood, clump together at the location of any type of a break or tear in the blood vessel walls of your cat.

If all three of these process were to breakdown at the same time, your cat would have absolutely no chance of survival as the bruising would almost burst to the point that your cat would appear as having bruises over their entire body. This abnormality can and does occur, but it is extremely rare in cats. However, one of the three problems does affect cats of any age, breed or sex.

The most common cause of the three, contrary to common belief, is not from a clotting disorder, but rather from a platelet disorder. The platelets in your cats blood are critical in this process, and disorders occurs when the number of platelets suddenly drops, raises, or from some reason, fails to function properly which results in bruising. These small particles of blood are produced in the bone marrow of your cat.

A disorder in this process causes them to either be destroyed or removed before they can do their intended job.

This condition can be inherited and will show up early in kittens, but in most cases they are acquired. There are several infections that can decrease the number of platelets, with the most common being viral infections such as Feline leukemia, Immunodeficiency, or Panleukopenia virus. Cancer as well as Myelophthisis that affects the bone marrow of your cat also causes a decrease, as well as a kidney or liver disease.

There are also certain vaccinations that use live viruses and as a result may also trigger the bruising. However, one of the fastest growing concerns and once thought to only be a problem with dogs is heart worm disease. Heart worms, even if there only one or two, can severely deplete the platelet count in your cat as they are that vicious.

Vasculitis, which is a disorder that causes the inflammation and than the destruction of the blood vessels, not only removes the platelets from your cats circulation, it also severely weakens the blood vessel walls. This disorder is especially dangerous as it affects both the arteries and the veins of your cat.

Diabetes, which is very common in older cats, also damages the vessel walls, and will eventually cause bruising to appear in your cat. Uremia, which is a condition where there is an increase in the waste products that are not cleaned out as a result of damaged kidneys, can also cause severe bruising to develop very rapidly.

Clotting factor disorders can also play a role and it is usually caused by a liver disease or by toxicity as the result of the ingestion of warfarin by your cat, This is the major ingredient that is used in both mice and rat poison and it does exactly what it is intended to do; it stops the clotting process by the dismembering of Vitamin K in your cats system.

Summary:

Bruising in cats is not a normal condition and the best way to view it is the actual bruising process in you. All of us are bruised at points in our life, but it is usually the result of an injury of some type. In fact, bruising is not that common in humans, unless they too have some type of a disorder.

Bruising should be treated with the same urgency in cats as coughing or panting is, as it is something that is very uncommon in your pet and when and if it does occur, it is the result of something that may be seriously wrong.