cat peeing blood / possible kidney stone

My cat has been peeing blood for a few weeks--plenty of it, with no apparent discomfort. She's had a ton of tests --blood, urine, xrays --all normal. Finally a specialist (internist) found via ultrasound a small kidney stone that he is 90% sure is causing the bleeding. In an effort to avoid surgery, he's put her on a chinese herb/anticoagulant (yunnan biayao), + iron + zenequin antibiotic (no sign of infection,but she clearly feels better on it). She's been on this regimen 2 weeks, with no change in amount of blood in urine.
Basically she is acting herself most of the time--good appetite, good level of energy, affectionate, etc. She's clearly not in any pain. The vet wants to give her another week or two of this.

If she doesn't improve, the next step is either cystoscopy for further diagnosis or straight to surgery, but the vet is hesitant to do this due to risk of operating on kidney (my cat is 10 and otherwise healthy) and the fact that he's still not 100% what's going on. They could not do the cystoscopy here, but would have to send her to a teaching hospital in another area.
My regular vet (cat vet) is opposed to these procedures, due to quality of life issues, but I am still hoping she will recover on her own; if not, I will likely go ahead with surgery.

Has anyone had this issue, and either had it resolve on its own or done a cystosopy/kidney stone surgery?

Thanks.

Hmm I'm not very familiar with kidney stones personally, I have been on a few surgeries to remove bladder stones from cats & dogs and the surgery is rather straight forward and not too difficult.. Some of the pets have been older and they have recovered fine.

Personally, if it were my pet, I'm not sure I'd be messing around with any holistic stuff for something like this. I have seen what kidney stones can do to a person.... I would really not hesitate to seek another opinion if I were you. Kidney stones can kill if left untreated, and passing them is horribly painful... If your cat is otherwise healthy if I were in your shoes I'd probably seek a surgical option...

I'm sure other members would probably have a better idea on kidney stones than I... wait and see what they have to say, but just from my position I wouldn't mess around with too many Chinese herb medicines for something like this.. they work well for alot of things I'll admit but a kidney stone is considered an emergency...

Thanks for your response.
Actually, this is a second opinion. The guy I'm seeing now is the referral vet for this area. I was also surprised that he prescribed an herbal treatment--it's not something I would do on my own, but apparently vets often use this herb to curb bleeding during surgery.

I talked to him again today, and he is recommending cystoscopy to get a biopsy and clear diagnosis (since he's not entirely sure it's a kidney stone)--so if anyone has had any experience with this kind of bleeding and/or cystoscopy, I would love to hear about it.

Thanks.

Were there any abnormalities (aside from the possible stone) noted during the ultrasound with the kidneys or surrounding structures/organs? Were the kidneys of normal shape & size for the age of your cat or was there any scarring of the kidneys shown?

Some info on kidney stones here: Renal Calculi (Stones) and Obstructions (http://www.felinecrf.org/causes_of_crf.htm#stones_obstructions) and here: Crystal Types (http://www.harpsie.com/flutd.htm#crystal_types)

:goodvibes: Good luck, keep us updated on your kitty's progress.