Hello I'm new here, and I have a snow spotted bengal girl, Little Chef. She's 7 months old, a rescue. - I maybe need some reassurance!

I took her to the vets today to be spayed, and her operation did not go well. She developed a Haemotoma during recovery, and now won't clot. They had to re-operate after the spay to fix the bleed, and even now the vet might have to operate again. She said she has never seen it in 30 years of being a vet
Apparently when she was being chipped also she bled a lot as well, which has led the vet to believe she may have Haemophilia or a similar blood clotting disorder, so she's had a bunch of tests done this afternoon, and I need to wait for the results. She's being kept in tonight at the Vets because they felt she was in too much pain and too risky to be let home. I saw her this evening and she's wrapped in a very fetching body bandage, covered in a blanket, and dosed to the eyeballs on painkillers, which I think are well deserved.
The vet did say that these kind of disorders are more prevalent among pedigree cats, but I didn't know if anyone on this forum had any experience of this kind of thing?
I can't lie, I am literally out of my mind worrying about her, she lives with me and my Egyptian Mau, (smaug) and my DLH (Tiny) - it's the first time they've been separated too, so they're both totally stressed. I swear I saw Smaug drinking the feliway straight out of the bottle...
In the long term, I have no idea how to even begin to manage a clotting disorder - she's an indoor already, but has anyone had a similar experience?



Any advice would be great - you guys all seem so supportive of each other.

Worried Mummy Jo

Poor baby! It is normally caused by an inherited gene from the mother so you need to let her breeder know ASAP.
There is often a Vitamin K deficiency noted in blood results, and this can be helped by changing the diet to include Vit K supplements - or adding greens (my boy eats spinach!?) to her food.
This has some good info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_K
It is not insurmountable, but you will need to ensure you keep calm and strong for her, to enable a full recovery. Then it will be a case of wrapping in cotton wool to some extent, until further tests show she is starting to clot properly.

Lots of hugs for you both XXXX

I would also be sure to let the breeder know.

Whilst it could be inherited/genetic, there may be other causes.

There are 2 caused by an inherited gene from the mother (factor VIII, Haemophilia A and Factor IX Haemophilia B) is carried on the X chromosome but girls are just carriers, it is boys that have the problem, called X Chromosome resessive trait. This is not the case in as far as the OP's cat as this is a girl.

I have not heard of any that are specific to bengals but inform your breeder anyhow.

I hoep your little girl is ok and you find out what has caused this.

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Lollo

aw poor baby. I'm sorry to read.
When she arrives home like another poster has mentioned you will need to 'wrap her in cotton wool', I would imagine her care would need to be similar to that of a human with the same condition.
I'm currently on blood thinners and there's a couple of things I have to be careful off, not to bang my body which can cause bruising, not to do silly activities that could l injure myself with - jumping off high things, high impact sports for the moment and most importantly to avoid being scratched. All sounds quite familiar to the bengal daily routine?!

Adding foods with vitamin K to her diet may help but be very careful when doing so and dont add them if the vet tells you not to. Foods that are highest in vitamin K are cranberries, spinach, cabbage, romaine lettuce - ironically this is everything I currently have to avoid!!

Thank you everyone for your kind replies & advice - just wanted to let you know that little chef has been going back to the vets every other day for medication to encourage the clotting process- I had some more tests run this week and more blood work on Monday when she is going to be kept in overnight for some observations. Again, the vets at my practice are completely puzzled by this - apparently Haemophillia and clotting disorders are very rare in felines generally - they have never seen a case like it.
Little Chef on the whole is being remarkably good about the ordeal, in spite of being wrapped in a compression bandage and dragged off to the vets so much. - although it had improved the relationship she has with my car. Unfortunately my other two kitties are bullying her a little bit, so I am keeping them separate when unsupervised.
I'd love to notify the breeder, but Chef is a rescue found with her Mum in a carrier bag and a couple of other kittens. - I am not sure if they all made it tbh, but I have let the shelter know and asked if they could look to see if the others were rehomed at all. I've been buying Applaws with Seaweed and spinach which she loves, thank you for the tip!
Will let you know the blood results when they come
X

Fingers crossed for good results! Keep us updated, please.
Hope she will settle back in with the others giving her a break! I can recommend getting a new chamois leather and giving her (and them) a quick rub over with it when she comes home - It helps get rid of the nasty vet smells - and they all smell the same for a while. It also restores condition and sheen to the coat because it helps reactivate the natural oils.

Well, She's had her stitches out and I am literally sitting by the phone waiting for the Vet to call with the blood results today. - She's been home and racing around for the last couple of days and even murdered her first bird after escaping out of the kitchen window :/

She seems to have totally bounced back, although is still a bit nervy of being approached or cornered, which is hardly surprising considering the amount of needles the poor sausage has had poked into her.

Just wanted to say thanks again for the kind words - having fortunately not been through anything like this before, I was freaking out a bit

Will pop any updates on as soon as I get them
x

aw glad to hear she's doing okay and yes, please keep us updated.

I am so glad to see that your baby is doing well! i am also pleased to see that your other cat is asleep next to her!! I hope everything goes well and she makes a full recovery and you never have to go through that again. I know how it is it is very scary I had a Doberman that had a clotting disorder and it was not fun when I had her spayed but they new of the disorder before hand so they knew what to do and I was in the operation room with her because I was a tech there at the time! She really good after her surgery healed it took almost a month before she was back to normal , I unfortunaly lost her from a drunk hitting her in his car on Christmas morning but she was 11 years old. She lived a happy healthy normal life despite her condition so dont get down about it, I treated her the same as I did my other two Dobermans and she was the best! Good Luck with everything I hope your baby is better soon and lives a long healthy normal life with her other kitty friends and of course you!

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So glad your little kitty is doing better. I'm new to this site. I found your post b/c our little Jax (brown rosetted bengal) had the same problem when he was neutered last a week ago Monday. They ended up having to cut his belly open to stop the bleeding. We are at the vet now to have sutures removed & he started bleeding again! We are so scared. The bleeding g has stopped now & the vet wants him to see a specialist today to test for a "clotting disorder".