Bleeding through dressing?

[itchybum26]

Hi, hoping someone can give me some advice on my injured cat.

Earlier on this evening my cat came back and I noticed he was bleeding heavily from his rear left paw, the blood was pretty fast flowing so I called the out of hours vet and they instructed me to bring him in.

After cleaning him up and examining him they said that he had a pretty nasty cut in between two of his phalanges and that due to the position it couldn't really be stitched.

His rear paw has been dressed with a sterile pad where the cut is, a cotton like bandage, a green sticky bandage and finally on top of that a pink sticky bandage and dosed up with painkillers and antibiotics.

As you can imagine he's not too happy but my main concern is that he's still bleeding through the dressing. Does anyone know if this is normal and will stop when its ready or should it have stopped bleeding by now? My poor cat is leaving blood stains all over the place and I don't know whether or not I'm just being an over protective cat mum!

[Fluffycloudland77]

It should clot in 3-6 minutes of injury but gravity interferes with leg/foot injuries so it keeps flowing for longer plus every time he walks the wounds going to split open a bit.

His body will be throwing platelets down there to stem the flow. Liquids spread so it looks more volume that it is.

I'd leave it, he will sleep overnight and the rest will let the blood clot.

[itchybum26]

Thanks for replying, much appreciated.

Looks like it has stopped bleeding and he's eaten well this morning so appears to be a bit brighter ... I'll busy myself with trying to get the blood stains out of the carpet!

[cozietoesie]

Sounds good.

(I'll see your bloodstains on the carpet and raise you a whole sack of Babybel which Darling Oneago stole one afternoon and ate in my bedroom. You try getting a complete coverlet of red wax (the Babybel covering) out of a pale fawn carpet!)

[itchybum26]

I would not even know where to start with wax! I'll stick to my bloodstains