Hi all,

Its my first time posting. I've looked through the forums a bit but thought it might be easier to post about our situation.

Our Bengal, Kiefer, will be 5 this July. She's indoor only, no other pets, and we treat her with Revolution every month.

She was pretty low maintenance until a little over 2 years ago when she started this habit of licking small patches of fur off of her legs until the skin gets raw. Our vet suspected environmental allergies and has us put a cone on her for a few days each time this happens, and then it clears up until the next incident. However, this has continued and happens almost every month. I no longer think it is environmental, I suspect either food allergies or stress, or both. This started a week before we had our first baby, so I don't think it was related to bringing a new family member home, she seemed fine with the new baby and enjoys all the fun baby toys and furniture. We also are home a lot more, so we are with her even more than before the baby.

Her other issue is she periodically has blood in her stool. The first time it happened was 3-4 years ago and the vet didn't find any parasites, etc and recommended we switch to a food with a lower protein content. She's been on Blue Buffalo Grain Free Limited Ingredient Turkey and Potato ever since. Over the past year, she's had several incidents of blood in her stool. The vet couldn't find anything wrong and eventually gave her a shot of antibiotics. Over the last few months, these incidents have increased and rather than paying the vet to not find anything wrong, we wait a couple days and it clears up. I usually know when she's going to have blood in her stool because she poops in the morning (she typically poops at night) and she wanders around the house meowing loudly and clearly uncomfortable.

We think that the cause of both of these issues is stress or food allergies or both. The vet recommended the Feliway plug in, but I am pregnant and not comfortable with the chemicals being in the air. We started using Rescue Remedy, a few drops in her water and occasionally rubbing it on her ear when she's being obnoxious. It was effective at first but seems to be losing effectiveness. She gets stressed easily, especially when we go out of town. When we return, she usually meows outside our door all night.

We also started trying to change her food to see if that was the problem. We were slowly switching her to Wellness Complete Salmon and Herring, but she started refusing to eat the new food when it was 75% new/25% old food and then she has had 2 bloody bowel movements in the last 2 days, including one on our carpet. I've switched her back to the old food for now.

Does anyone have any recommendations for food, treatments, etc? I am losing my mind. She's clearly not happy and frequently wakes us up in the middle of night meowing at our bedroom door, jumping at the door handle, etc. I am having another baby in less than 6 months and we NEED to get this figured out before then. We just want a healthy happy cat!

Does the cat get fleas and need the revolution treatment? I would assume that could cause some sort of allergy (at least a skin one).

Please do not take offense but I do find it odd you don't want chemicals in the air but put them directly on the cat which probably lives in your house and gets on your bed, children may pet them, ect. I have never used Feliway so I can't comment on it. I have used Revolution on two occasions when a visiting dog brought fleas, I get no one wants fleas! If she doesn't have fleas, you may want to stop the revolution to see if that helps her licking.

I am not sure what tests your vet have done but there are many causes of bloody diarrhea, food allergies is one, but there are also causes like polyps and colitis.

If the food is dry food, I would switch to wet. They should have the same type available as wet.

Sometimes probiotics can help or pumpkin.

Is the stool formed?

I would still be working with the vet to find a solution, there are special diets only they can prescribe and other things they can test for if they can't rule it out through diet. I will say... figuring out bloody stools or diarrhea seems to be very difficult and may take many vet visits and time.

Welcome to the forum. You have a lot going on with your kitty. There is a lot of info online regarding overgrooming. The causes are usually stress or allergies! Plain and simple. Adding a new member to the family can add that stress -- and even cats seem to understand impending birth. However, it could also be caused by skin irritation of some sort. I'm sure your vet inspected that area carefully. I don't especially like applying flea medication to my cats, but they get fleas and ticks if I do not and that is very uncomfortable for them. I have never had an issue with the stuff I apply to them which was Frontline until it stopped working and now I use Bravecto.

As for the blood in the stool -- it should not be that difficult to figure what is going on. You may need to have an ultrasound done to check the abdomen. Your vet has ruled out parasites. Did he test for Tritrichomonas foetus? Usually the cat has diarrhea as well. The blood is coming from somewhere. And one has to be careful the cat does not become anemic.

I know how frustrating it is to have these issues and no answers. Your poor kitty is not having a great time with these issues either. All you can do is keep working on solving them.

_________________

_________________
The little monsters 3

_________________
The little monsters 3

There are cat foods out there with pumpkin added. Unfortunately neither of my cats will eat them.