Cat throwing up after meals

lucycat

Hi all, my cat Sophie (who is 18 months old) has started regurgitating food almost the second she has finished her meals - this is the second day of it and the vet is coming this evening to see her.
She seems to be in great form apart from this, not in pain, not hiding, not behaving unusually at all. Our other cat (her sister) Jersey is totally fine, so I am pretty sure whatever is wrong with Sophie isn't contagious.
Has this ever happened to anyone with cats before? We feed them a special, organic cat food and they have never eaten anything else so I don't think she is allergic to the food...I'm very worried about her and I guess I would just like to hear your thoughts on it? Vet told me not to worry if she was behaving normally apart from the regurgitation, but as all mammies of furbabies know, that is easier said than done :rolleyes:

Thanks guys.

seamus

Could just be an upset tummy. Have you tried something milder like chicken or fish?

lucycat

seamus wrote: »

Could just be an upset tummy. Have you tried something milder like chicken or fish?

Hi Seamus and thanks for replying to me No, I haven't tried her with anything else, I just made sure she had lots of fresh water and that the house was nice and cosy for her. She doesn't seem sick if you get me, like she is playing like usual with her sister and the dogs and her eyes are bright and she doesnt mind me touching her tummy or anything...just hope it's something straightforward that can be fixed quickly for her

Graces7

One of ours does this sometimes. I think it is eating too fast and too much at once with him; greedy guts. Little and often. May also be something in the food the cat has become allergic or sensitive to. Which is why we feed raw.

Cats do not react to vomiting as we do! No big deal so often . Looks alarming as they look as if they are turning themselves inside out!

lucycat

Thanks Graces7, Sophie is a little greedy guts alright so maybe that is all it is. I always had cats growing up, but we never did the raw diet with them. These guys are solely indoor kitties too, so I think I am a little afraid of uber-stinky bums if we changed to the raw diet, but I will definitely raise this with the vet this evening, so thanks:)
God, the noise of them being sick is just awful alright!! Literally puts the heart cross-ways in me!

Graces7

lucycat wrote: »

Thanks Graces7, Sophie is a little greedy guts alright so maybe that is all it is. I always had cats growing up, but we never did the raw diet with them. These guys are solely indoor kitties too, so I think I am a little afraid of uber-stinky bums if we changed to the raw diet, but I will definitely raise this with the vet this evening, so thanks:)
God, the noise of them being sick is just awful alright!! Literally puts the heart cross-ways in me!

When I took in these two, they came from an appalling cat shelter and it emerged they were infected aleady with enteritis... I thought I would never get rid of the smell in the house.

Did not know re an extra bad smell after raw? Do others find that? MIne go outside ...;)

And yes, the noise! This one seems to manage it in the night!

lucycat

Gosh, maybe their business doesn't smell worse on a raw diet, I just kinda assumed it would...my two ladies are rescues too, took them from a horrible, EVIL woman who was going to drown them - I swear even typing that makes me feel ill Needless to say, the fact that they had such bad starts means that they are spoiled rotten and rule the entire household

anniehoo

Graces7 wrote: »

One of ours does this sometimes. I think it is eating too fast and too much at once with him; greedy guts. Little and often.!

My guess is this also. They cant handle a lot of food at once, so if they gobble it down and not take a break it'll just come straight back up again...which they will then proceed to eat again :eek: if you dont get it in time.

If shes not off form i wouldnt worry too much yet, but you may need to give her smaller meals from now on so she learns to pace herself.

lucycat

Thanks anniehoo, I flew home at lunchtime to see her and she was totally fine, doing the whole 'oh its you, well I suppose I'll let you snuggle me but only because YOU like it, I find it all rather boring'
Gave her some kibble and she ate it and wasn't sick, so hopefully its just like you guys said and that she is just being a pig with her wet food.
Will let ye know what the vet says this evening, the new puppy has to get vaccinated next week but the vet said she could do it tonight which is great. Love having a vet who makes house calls

anniehoo

Sounds like she'll be fine. I get this with my cat too if i give him something tasty. He hoovers it up and then regurgitates it when his little tummy realises its too full, whereas he'll just graze all day on small mouthfuls of his dry food and it never happens. Although vomiting continuous vomiting for >48hrs in a cat should be taken relatively seriously as they dehydrate very quickly.

lucycat

Yeah thats the bit I don't like anniehoo, she has been at this for two days now she was drinking from the puppy's water bottle when I got home, which she loves to do so I really hope she is not contagious, or I will have a house full of puke :rolleyes:
Will be relieved when I get to see the vet though just to reassure myself that she is ok. My mum said it could be a hairball that she is trying to sick up but it doesn't sound like one to me - what do you think? And sorry for wrecking your heads with this, I am the most overprotective mammy ever!

Graces7

lucycat wrote: »

Yeah thats the bit I don't like anniehoo, she has been at this for two days now she was drinking from the puppy's water bottle when I got home, which she loves to do so I really hope she is not contagious, or I will have a house full of puke :rolleyes:
Will be relieved when I get to see the vet though just to reassure myself that she is ok. My mum said it could be a hairball that she is trying to sick up but it doesn't sound like one to me - what do you think? ever!

And sorry for wrecking your heads with this, I am the most overprotective mammy

Worry not; we all do it. She is drinking so she will not dehydrate. Maybe stop feeding her?
Let her insided rest a while?
Our collie once vomited 72 hours in a bad storm and we kept her going with home made rehydration fluid and ginger. The vet would not come out so we have learned to manage and she was fine. We did the same with the enteritis. then a vet nurse made up a magic pink gunk that stopped it all in its track. It seemed that they just could not stop, that their systems were irritated beyond coping. I found the boy hiding in a corner to die and refused to let him.

lucycat

Oh my God Graces7 fair play to you! I am completely hysterical in a crisis so if I had been you I really don't know what I would have done. Thank God you managed to save him
I took the dry food off her before I came back to work, but she looked as if she was going to keep it down (I hope)
Will let you know what's going on as soon as I see the vet this evening...please God everything will be ok.

Zapperzy

Mine does that too, well used to do it. I used to just leave a bowl of dry food down for her to pick at all day, she'd eat too much and throw it all back up. Started giving her smaller meals throughout the day and problem solved. Only very occassionally does she still do it, whereas it was nearly every day before.

Forgot to add what does it look like? Exactly like what went down just a little foamy and the dry food expanded? That's what my cat's used to look like, if it was anything else I'd be worried.

Graces7

Came back to ask if you are still feeding her? Best not to. She will be fine as long as she is drinking, but food will irritate the system. Then if the vet says so, a little cooked chicken and rice?

We have had our dramas in isolated places with no vet, but you learn not to panic. Cats and dogs are tougher then we think/ They have the sense to let themselves BE ill rather than carrying on as we do.

Keep us updated?

lucycat

Zapperzy, it looks just like the food, just a bit chewed up (gick, sorry!) but yesterday I noticed a little pool of bile-y looking stuff on the floor of the loo so thats another reason why I am panicking slightly (read: a lot).

Graces7, vet is due at 6.30pm my time (am an hour ahead) so will post the second she goes with hopefully some good news.

Heroditas

Have you spotted her near the Christmas tree by any chance?
Ours have puked quite a bit more in the last week or two because they keep trying to eat the tree and tinsel.

About half an hour after they gnaw some tinsel we are treated to kitty impressions of the Exorcist. :rolleyes:

planetX

One of my cats who hunts a lot does this, I think the stomach can get irritated by little mouse bones.

btw where did you find a vet who does house calls?

Graces7

planetX wrote: »

One of my cats who hunts a lot does this, I think the stomach can get irritated by little mouse bones.

btw where did you find a vet who does house calls?

I wondered that too!

lucycat

Graces7 wrote: »

I wondered that too!

Sorry guys, I live in Luxembourg and they are quite mad about animals over here, so my vet does house calls no problem which is brilliant because the cats get so stressed out in the car

Anyway, good news re Sophie - the vet reckons she just has a stomach virus and it's nothing to worry about thank God. Sophie didnt throw up last night after I fed her some chicken and she didnt get sick this morning either so I am very relieved! On the off chance that she gets sick again by Thursday I have to call the vet back and she will do an x-ray, but at the moment she doesn't think there is any need to worry.

Heroditas, speaking about Christmas trees my two are banned from unsupervised visits to the sitting room after almost being electrocuted last year when they decided to munch on the lights! And yep, they are OBSESSED with tinsel too :rolleyes:

Thanks for all the advice guys, ye are wonderful and I'd like to wish you and your furbabies a great Christmas and New Year :cool:

Themadhouse

If the regurgitation continues try feeding her twice a day and put the bowl on a shoe box or something that will higher the bowl. If the bowl is at a higher level the food goes down easier.

Graces7

lucycat wrote: »

Sorry guys, I live in Luxembourg and they are quite mad about animals over here, so my vet does house calls no problem which is brilliant because the cats get so stressed out in the car

Anyway, good news re Sophie - the vet reckons she just has a stomach virus and it's nothing to worry about thank God. Sophie didnt throw up last night after I fed her some chicken and she didnt get sick this morning either so I am very relieved! On the off chance that she gets sick again by Thursday I have to call the vet back and she will do an x-ray, but at the moment she doesn't think there is any need to worry.

Heroditas, speaking about Christmas trees my two are banned from unsupervised visits to the sitting room after almost being electrocuted last year when they decided to munch on the lights! And yep, they are OBSESSED with tinsel too :rolleyes:

Thanks for all the advice guys, ye are wonderful and I'd like to wish you and your furbabies a great Christmas and New Year :cool:

That is good to hear. She may just be like my girl who can no longer take any processed food without major issues so maybe try a raw or similarly pure diet. ( I cannot take processed foods either so do understand)

Speaking of tinsel; one of my Siamese used to produce inches of it in the litter tray. Never seemed to harm him but! Maybe they think it is a nice edible snake..

Blessings and peace this Christmas..

DogsFirst

Graces7 wrote: »

Came back to ask if you are still feeding her? Best not to. She will be fine as long as she is drinking, but food will irritate the system. Then if the vet says so, a little cooked chicken and rice?

We have had our dramas in isolated places with no vet, but you learn not to panic. Cats and dogs are tougher then we think/ They have the sense to let themselves BE ill rather than carrying on as we do.

Keep us updated?

Cats and dogs shouldn't be vomiting their dinners. Grace is right with instantly starving them for 12 hours to let things settle. As long as the water is going in you should be fine. You can put a little sugar and salt in the water to balance the electrolytes (much much cheaper than the deoralyte your vet will sell you).

You'll need your vet to take a looksy. I'd hazard a shot pancreas, very common complaint in dry fed cats (high carbohydrate diet places massive strain on the pancreas and it is very common in dry fed cats today. In fact examination of 115 feline pancreata from healthy and sick cats found pancreatitis in 67% of cases including 45% of apparently healthy cats (Owens et al. (1975), Macy (1989), Steiner and Williams (1997), De Cock et al. (2007). In other two thirds of cats today are walking around with shot pancreas!! Needless to say this isn't normal. A typical symptom of it is vomiting immediately after dinners.

The cats pancreas, normally used only to zero carbohydrates (as it is an obligate carnivore) would be under considerable strain since kitten hood. With no amylase in their saliva their carbohydrate loaded meal passes to the duodenum whereby the pancreas is now required to produce first enough amylase to break down all the carbohydrate present but also enough insulin to balance the soaring blood sugar. A pancreas under this sort of strain will be vulnerable. This may go some way to explaining fat-induced bouts of acute pancreatitis in dogs and cats from "table scraps" or the likes. While genetics certainly plays a role unfortunately it is still unknown whether carbohydrate overload from weaning results in pancreatitis in dogs and remains unknown. So they keep bulking up your cats food with them, as they are cheaper than animal protein.

If your vet diagnoses pancreatitis (which is difficult to spot early stage) they at this point may begin to shift you to an extremely over priced and nutritionally defunct "pancreatitis" dry food off their shelf but question this. It was the dry food that caused the problem. There is a far better (and cheaper) solution.

Your cat will need to move immediately from the disastrous carbohydrate laden biscuits to a good diet, a natural diet of easily digested fresh meat (oily fish, raw chicken on the bone, whatever). You will need to introduce her slowly, first the brine, then 10% tuna mixed in, then 20% etc.

A fresh natural diet rectifies most pancreatic illness and will save your cat bouts of one of the most painful illnesses out there (pancreatitis is when the body begins to digest itself). While the pancreas is still required to produce stuff to digest the protein (trypsin etc) and fat (lipase) this is what it was meant to do and countless studies show cats with the disease fair extremely well. It will be important that the meat is not cooked as it will require more work of the pancreas to digest it. You may need to ad digestive enzymes to her food (amylase, trypsin, lipase) to help her pancreas digest her dinner. Humans ones do fine (but obviously in smaller dose, google) and so much cheaper than the stuff the vet will push.

To slow your cat down eating place a toy in the bowl. They haven't the smarts to remove it and will be forced to eat around it. Or a stone, something. Often have to do this with pack hounds to stop from gulping. That said carnivores are designed to gulp and it shouldn't induce vomiting at every feed.

Best of luck with her, she'll be fine.