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| - When I adopted my cat, Luca, in CA last year, he was having some problems with blood in his litter box. The vet I was using at the time didn't show much interest in solving his problem. She said he probably had worms and gave him a shot.
It got a lot better over time, but a year later he was still periodically bleeding; I would find drops of blood on the white tile in my apt. So, I looked at some Yelp reviews and found a new vet. He diagnosed possible Colitis and put Luca on a hypoallergenic diet. There was a significant decrease in blood so I thought we had it figured out.
We moved to Arizona and started going to Banfield. After about 10 mos, Luca started to bleed more often. His new Banfiled vet (Tempe on Elliot) INSISTED he see a specialist. I was LOATHE to go. I was afraid the specialist would order a $2,000 colonoscopy then tell me nothing useful. Boy was I wrong!
We saw Dr. Polina Vishkautsan, an Internal Medicine Specialist at VCA Referral Center in Mesa. It was $162 for the consultation, and worth every penny. Much to my surprise, she gave me her undivided attention for an hour. She listened carefully to his history, and recommended we do a fecal test specific to a parasite called Tritrichomonas foetus. She told me that this parasite isn't widely known, and while Luca's symptoms were not typical, she thought this was likely his problem.
She took a sample and sent it to a lab at a university in North Carolina that is conducting research on this parasite ($144 for the test). One week later we had our answer - Luca has Tritrichomonas foetus. He is unusually lucky in that his symptoms are very minor. Most infected cats have terrible bloody diarrhea, and many are euthanized.
I had done some research and discovered that when she told me the treatment for the parasite is 'not pretty', she was right; it could actually kill him. We discussed his quality of life and decided not to treat him unless for some reason he gets much worse. This information came at a critical time. With all the foreclosures in the area, I took in 2 foster cats. This new information made it very important to keep the fosters isolated, for their own safety.
Dr. Vishkautsan is an EXCELLENT vet. She is one of those rare professionals that is truly dedicated to her craft. I highly recommend VCA and Dr. V. For $300 I got a definitive diagnosis, and I am so happy to finally know. And I didn't have to get the $2,000 colonoscopy done! Thank you so much Dr. V!!!!
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