blood in urine is indicitive of a problem somewhere in the urinary system. It would be best for you to see a urologist not your gyn and let a urologist determine what tests if any are needed. You would also need to bring thes lab test results that you have had done with you or have your gyn send them to the urologist. There are many reasons for trace amounts of blood to be found in urine. Micro amounts may be nothing to be concerned with, but visual evidence, even once is something to have checked out. I would insist that your GYN send you to a urologist. You may need to have your primary make the arrangements for you. It is best to have specialists check this out and not go with your GYN's suggestion of tests. From experience the first thing a urologist will do is a cystocopy right there in the office. Simple procedure, I've had it done before and then if needed, further tests will be suggested. If finances are a problem, discuss that with your doctor and the urologist. I'm sure that some kind of arrangements can be made to reduce the cost of the tests. As for your question about your strategy being OK. My answer is your strategy is all wrong. GYN's deal with GYN problems, this is not in their scope of specialty. You should have been referred to a Urologist right away to determine what tests need to be done. Renal CT scans are usually done after other tests have been done, if it is needed. It is usually not the first test done. You should not wait to find out what is going on. You should be seen by a urologist as soon as possible. Good luck and let us know what you find out, but please, do not wait. It may be nothing to be concerned with and it may be something serious that needs treatment ASAP. Only a urologist can tell you that.

I call that the "Everything Must Have A Name" rule. None of this "poultry fat" stuff - gotta tell me if it's chicken or duck or whatever. Just "animal fat"? Run away screaming. On the "meal" issue... if your pet food contains fish meal, make sure it is specified as "ethoxyquin-free". Not that the entire pet food in total is ethoxyquin-free, but that that particular ingredient is. (Pet food manufacturers are not required by law to tell you what may have been added to an ingredient before it comes into their possession if they don't want to, so all kinds of preservatives, contaminants and such can be in there. They just have to tell you what THEY do to it.) By US law, fish meal not intended for human consumption must be preserved with ethoxyquin. A very few processors have been granted waivers to produce fish meal preserved with something other than ethoxyquin and usually it's trumpeted loud and clear as a marketing point when a pet food manufacturer uses ethoxyquin-free fish meal - Wellness is one of them, and it took some digging but Natura Pet Products (Innova, EVO, California Natural, Healthwise, and Karma Organic) is on board there too. "Digest" must be avoided at all costs even if it does have a species name although more often than not it's just on there as "animal digest". It's gods-only-know-what waste material chemically or enzymatically broken down - predigested - into a slurry in order to convert it into supposedly-bioavailable protein that a less-than-scrupulous pet food manufacturer can use to raise the "crude protein" content on the label. Not only does the animal usually get little actual nutritional value out of the substance but what can legally go into "animal digest" is gruesome to say the least - there is no control over quality, source, or contamination. I do have to nitpick just a little bit though - by-products are not necessarily always bad, but it's a case of Know Thy Manufacturer. See, people go on and on about by-products being whatever junk swept up off the factory floor when by legal definition it is just the stuff that isn't "striated muscle" (either skeletal muscles, diaphragm, or heart): "lungs, spleen, kidneys, brain, livers, blood, bone, stomachs and intestines freed of their contents" and specifically excludes "hair, horns, teeth and hoofs". If you've got a food company that gets that material fresh and handles it properly so it doesn't spoil, it's very good stuff. C'mon, people eat kidneys, brains, liver, blood (usually made into sausage - black pudding being a famous variety), stomachs (tripe), and intestines ("chitlins" and sausage casings), and many of the frozen-raw-diet manufacturers are all over the stuff. A hot trend in natural pet food is "green tripe", which is cow stomach without the contents removed, just ground up semi-digested grass and all. (The smell of it will clear a house though. Whoooo-eeee!) So really it's more a question of knowing your manufacturer than avoiding an entire class of ingredient. Many of the better pet-food manufacturers are avoiding brains entirely these days though, because of worries about BSE.

David, Has a urine CULTURE (not just a urinalysis) been performed on a STERILE (acquired through cystocentesis) urine sample? If not, I recommend you have that done right away. Only a culture can tell your vet exactly which, if any, bacteria is present in his urine. Without a culture, your vet can only prescribe "shotgun" broad spectrum antibiotics and hope that they'll be effective against any bacteria present. Knowing the specific bacteria present through a urine culture will allow your vet to prescribe an antibiotic with known efficacy against that specific bacteria. Acquiring a sterile urine sample through cystocentesis (urine drawn directly from the bladder with a needle) is important because free-catch urine (urine that's been peed out) can easily be contaminated and return a false positive test result. Once you have a culture from a sterile urine sample, you'll know for sure whether or not there actually is infection present. Blood can also appear in urine as the result of urinary crystals without infection or as a result of interstitial cystitis (inflammation of unknown cause of the urinary tract). If there is no infection present, antibiotics are useless, and other treatment options will need to be implemented. Laurie

Is she euthyroid (normal thyroid levels) with her current dose of Carbimazole? If so, you should have bloodwork run to check her kidney function now. You can't necessarily trust normal kidney results at the time of her hyperT diagnosis, This is because uncontrolled hyperT can mask renal problems by forcing sick kidneys to work harder than they would work without the stimulating effects of the hyperT. Blood tests can't tell the difference between kidneys being forced to work hard by uncontrolled hyperT (and therefore returning "normal" test results), and kidneys that really are healthy. The only way to evaluate the health of your cat's kidneys is to have a blood chemistry run AFTER she has achieved euthyroid on carbimazole. If it turns out that she does have kidney disease (which is likely, given her age), then it's also likely that the blood in her urine points to a urinary tract infection. Kidney cats are prone to UTI's because of their dilute urine. Dilute urine is less acidic and more easily populated by bacteria. The "big puddles" your cat produces makes me think that she is diluting her urine with extra water intake (common in both kidney and hyperT cats). The only way to definitively diagnose UTI is by having a STERILE urine sample tested either by urinalysis or by urinary culture (culture is best). This means that the sample needs to be collected by cystocentesis (drawing urine directly from the bladder with a long, thin needle inserted through the abdomen). Any urine that is collected after being peed out (free catch) is subject to contamination that may return a false positive lab result, so that's just a waste of time and money. If a culture run on a sterile urine sample comes back negative for bacteria and/or urinary crystals, then your cat most likely has simple cystitis. This is often caused by stress. Laurie