Hi everyone!

I've been an avid reader of this forum since we got our baby boy Oishii (pronounced oye-shee) and had meant to post an introduction but procrastination happened... He has a lot of personality and is so adorable and smart! We love him so much :)

Unfortunately now I am posting because he has had bloody stools since mid January. He had been eating Orijen Cat/Kitten dry food and had mostly solid poops with some bright red blood at the end. We took him to the vet and he was given a treatment of Metronidazole for inflammation. We also brought in a stool sample and it came back negative for any parasites. He also received a clean bill of health from the vet.

After the Metronidazole was finished we kept an eye out for the blood and it just didn't seem to be getting better. Still solid stool though. I started reading on the forums and it seemed like although Orijen is great on paper, there might be too many different types of proteins so we transitioned him over to Tiki Cat wet food which has 1-2 proteins. I made the mistake of buying a few different kinds in case he didn't like one "flavor" so it was still a few different types of proteins. He loved them all by the way, he hasn't met food he doesn't like.

The blood was still there and he was starting to have runnier poops so we started to isolate the protein to chicken (in case of a food allergy) by feeding him only Tiki Cat Succulent Chicken and a little bit of pumpkin (no treats or other foods). It's been about 2 days now since he's been eating only Tiki Cat Chicken + pumpkin but his stool isn't firming up and I still see blood. We have an appointment with a vet first thing Monday morning but until then I'm not sure what else we can do to help the poor little guy. By the way, the 'poor little guy' does not act like he is sick or has bloody runny stools at all. He has tons of energy and runs around like a maniac!

Tonight after work we plan on feeding him some rice and boiled chicken which was recommended to us by some very friendly pet store employees. We'll probably keep him on that diet until the vet appointment on Monday (it's Friday now).

Do any of you have ideas of what might be causing this? The blood is the original issue. His stool has been runny since we stopped feeding him dry food but it's still an issue as well and could be indicative of the root cause. For the past 5 days I've kept a pretty detailed poop/feeding log I could post if that would help shed some more light on the problem as well.

Thank you so much for any advice/tips!

Blood in the stool is problematic. It is coming from somewhere in the digestive system. Naturally, your vet is you best bet in trying to get to the bottom of this. I'm glad to hear the Metronidazole worked for you. My bengal is on the medication twice a day and still has runny poops. But .... the thing is to stop the blood flow. I would think your vet would have some answers. Or have they recommended additional testing that may be expensive (ultrasound, biopsies). Usually cats with TF have blood in their stools, but if your kitty is not vomiting and is eating and behaving normal, TF is usually not present.

Let your vet know the blood is continuing and follow their recommendation. Google may help you in providing articles that can shed light on the issue.

If you want to go down the food allergy route, to test that out, you should use a special limited ingredient food, that literally doesn't have any of the same ingredients that your kitty has been eating in his other foods.

Some companies make foods like that:

https://www.hillspet.com/cat-food/pd-dd ... ormula-dry

And you need to keep him on it for awhile (weeks, not days).

Another option would be to put him on a raw diet for awhile, but pick a protein that he hasn't been eating in his other foods (duck, venison, quail, rabbit etc). There are some good, commercially made raw foods available in specialty pet stores. Be careful when selecting those though, because some are nutritionally complete, while others require adding supplements. Ask the people at the pet store for help identifying the right thing.

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The little monsters 3

I have no idea why manufacturers think cats love cranberries, cherries, carrots, peas, potatoes, rice, etc. There are a lot of foods out there with limited ingredients. Nutritional info is always available online (especially through Chewy.com). It's hard to read the labels on the actual bags and cans.

Sorry I didn't see the responses sooner! After I posted, it said that my post needed to be approved by an admin and I never got a notification that someone responded. I'll be sure to check the thread more frequently now :)

Anyways, for an update... We did bring Oishii to the vet on 2/18 and she put him on a round of dewormer as well as a prescription diet of Hill's i/d dry cat food. We also got some wet food from Hill's as well that was recommended by the vet. We fed him that since 2/18. Now it is 3/11 and it hasn't improved at all. He is still having runny stools with some bright red blood at the end. Occasionally his stools will be slightly firmer (but not forming a solid shape) so I'm considering that as no improvement. We called the vet again today and she recommended we switch to Hill's w/d. If his stool quality doesn't improve after trying Hill's w/d she said she will put him on a hypoallergenic diet (something like Royal Canin's HP). If that doesn't work then she recommended we bring him in for imaging.

Thanks for your responses and help. All advice is very welcome! I'll definitely keep this thread updated as we continue to debug Oishii's tummy and poops :)

It's ironic that so many bengals have this issue. First and foremost is to test the fecal for parasites, including TF. If everything comes back normal, then there is a problem in the digestive tract. I am going through the exact same thing with my bengal who is also in the Hills i/d diet. Unfortunately, the i/d food has other grains, egg, etc. I swear when I first started feeding it to Raiden, it had chicken and chicken liver as the only two ingredients before all the supplemental nutrients. Mine doesn't like the canned food, so he gets the dry. Vets are big on this diet for some reason. And they have i/u, i/z, i/w etc. and I'm guessing there isn't a lot of difference in the food.

The blood in the stool is the problem. It is getting in through the intestinal walls somehow. I'm surprised your vet has recommended medication to help with the diarrhea, although mine is on some and it is no longer working for him.

Listen, I'm at my wits end as well. Raiden has had a couple of poops that were softly formed, bu then goes right back to liquid. He gets FortiFlora which doesn't seem to be helping either. Raiden has been diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease. Unfortunately, diagnosis and treatment can take months, if not years. It is frustrating.

An ultrasound will give the vet a look at the abdomen and hopefully see if anything is out of the ordinary. I wish you well with us.

Side note: not sure why the admins would have to approve a post unless ti has a keyword or something there. My posts are shown immediately.

He did have a fecal test which came back negative for any parasites. I'm not sure if the results could have changed since the last test which was in mid-January.
The Hill's i/d was not helping so our vet switched him over to Hill's w/d. He seems to like this dry food better than the i/d but still doesn't eat with gusto as he does with boiled chicken. I also ordered FortiFlora which arrived today so I will try to give him one serving tonight.

He still has runny stools and honestly it's hard to tell whether or not there is still blood since he tends to cover it up quickly. However, we usually wipe his bum post-poop and I haven't seen blood as regularly as before! Previously there would be blood every time he had a bowel movement. I think it might be less frequent now which is a good sign!

Sorry to hear Raiden has a similar issue. Is there anything you've tried that seemed to produce better results? It does seem like you're still trying to figure it out as well. I guess I'm in it for the long haul too. Honestly, I've never thought about poop so much in my life haha

No, we are still trying to figure things out. The medications were working well and Raiden's stools were formed. I've got about 80 pictures on my phone. I take pictures when I can hear him digging his way to China and scoot him out before he can cover it. There are many medications for diarrhea. We may have to change the metronidazole or go with a higher dosage. He gets .5 ml twice a day and .5 ml of prednisolone once a day. We may start supplementing B12 once the vet gets back with me. We've done the B12 injections and I went to the liquid because giving Raiden shots was not working. But he had a B12 test where his value was so high it could not be read, so we stopped them. Now he is back to barely normal and I'm waiting to hear if I need to start them again.

The digestive system is complicated and the diarrhea means the food is not going down the digestive tract properly -- usually too fast. For Raiden, the issue is in the small intestine. I don't know that I've seen blood in his stool because sometimes it's just dark and I can't tell if there is any red there.

It is just frustrating trying to figure this out. And I'm dealing with two vets -- our regular vet and an internal medicine vet. And they both need to communicate with each other.

Honestly, I have learned a lot from just googling. It doesn't replace recommendations from a vet, but at least I can also verify that the vets are doing the right thing for Raiden.

Gosh, I honestly wish I had the answers for you. I think the best thing we can do is share our experiences with the same issues and maybe learn together.

Oh wow, I hope things start looking better soon. Sounds like you've got a solid team to try and figure it out though. It is very frustrating, and it looks like you've been dealing with this much longer than I have. Hopefully we can help each other! I've learned a lot from other users on these forums and hope others can learn from our discussions as well.

Alright, so for the update! Oishii has been eating Hill's Prescription Diet w/d for a week now and his bowel movements have been more solid. Sometimes it's still a bit soft, but not runny like before. I ended up NOT giving him FortiFlora yet because we wanted to see how he did with the new diet. We will probably keep him on this diet until the bag runs out. Hopefully his stools remain steady...

His appetite seems very large though. The first ingredient is rice, so I'm thinking it's not keeping him as full/sustained as his previous diet of mostly chicken (boiled/canned wet food). He usually eats 2-2.5 "bowls" of kibble each day but now he's pushing 3-4. I don't measure out his food very carefully like before, I'm guessing it's about 1/2 a cup each time. Not sure if I have to restrict his food as a 6mo kitten?

Have you tried giving Raiden the Hill's w/d diet? You mentioned Raiden was on the I/d, but i/d didn't work for Oishii either.

The vet hasn't changed the Hills Rx diet. We are going to double the Metronidazole to 1ml twice a day and see how that works. It has only been a couple of doses so far and I haven't seen a big change yet. There are other medications we can try if we don't succeed with this. Love our regular vet--she's been seeing Raiden for years. The specialist is arrogant and distant and wants to push other expensive tests. She told our vet she wanted to see Raiden again. Well, he is gaining weight, still. Not vomiting, has a great appetite, drinks plenty of water, has all of his energy and then some -- the only issue is the soft stools, so our regular vet is going to deal with this.

Happy your little one is doing better.

Had the same issue with my girl...blood at the end of the stool. I trialed many different foods and what sucks is they need to be on it a few weeks before a change happens.

Vet could not find anything wrong with her.

We did end up fixing it using instinct limited ingredient wet turkey.

I just can't believe bengals seem to have this issue. Way too many posts on this forum about this. Wish there was an easy cure for it all.