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parczel

vomiting cats

parczel
12 years ago

I have 2 cats, both are almost 2 years old--and they are throwing up hairballs all the time. Occasionally they throw up mostly bile with just a little bit of hair that hasn't clumped. This has been going on for a little over a month. It is happening much more with one cat than the other (I think the cat that isn't throwing up as much is having a regular amount of hairballs like 2/week). I've taken them both to the vet recently when it first started and they can find nothing wrong. They are both alert and active. They are on different foods because one of them had a urinary tract blockage about 6 months ago and has been on a prescription diet ever since. But the vomiting only started in the past month or so. I have no idea what I can do to fix it. I can't give the one cat food to prevent hairballs because he is supposed to be on the urinary food. the other one is already on a food that claims to prevent hairballs. I'm cleaning up bile and hairballs usually twice a day between the both of them. One of them just vomited bile on my stereo.

Comments (7)

  • kittens
    12 years ago

    What kind of urinary food was the cat prescribed and what is the other one eating?

  • sylviatexas1
    12 years ago

    brush brush brush brush brush...

    You might ask your vet to recommend food that will work for both urinary tract health & hairballs.

    I wish you the best.

  • parczel
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    The one with the urinary problems is on Royal Canin Urinary SO, the other cat is eating Blue Buffalo Indoor Cat dry food, mixed with blue buffalo wet food.

  • lzrddr
    12 years ago

    Vomiting hairballs more than every few weeks is more like a medical problem rather than just a bad month of hairballs. You should see your vet about this. Just about any canned food (preferrably no fish) is fine for bladder problems in cats, and can sometimes decrease the vomiting frequency you see. Might also try a 1/4 pepcid AC which is a pretty harmless ant-acid/ H2 blocker that helps the stomach acid levels decrease and can really help with cat vomiting. Dose is once a day per cat. But still, that is too much vommiting. You need to get that taken care of.

  • annzgw
    12 years ago

    How many times a day do you feed them or do they get to free-feed?
    Also, are they long or short-haired? I ask about the length of hair because the easiest way I've found to 'brush' my cat is to use a lint roller on her. She loves the massage she gets from the roller and I've found it's the fastest way to catch any loose hair.

  • parczel
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    I feed the cats twice a day. Once around 6 am, and again around 6 pm. I think I've actually figured out the problem-- I was reading around the forum and some people were talking about their cats refusing to eat cold food. My cats eat food cold or room temp and never get too fussy. But I decided to try warming up the food before feeding, since my boy doesn't finish the can at once and I store it in the fridge till next feeding. So this past week I began warming up the food that was in the fridge before feeding, and we've only had one hairball in 7 days. Hopefully this solves the problem and it's not just a good week. I have no idea why cold food would cause vomiting bile and hair, but hopefully that's all it was.

  • parczel
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    Also, in my experimenting (since the trip to the vet concluded in the vet saying that both cats were in good health and the vomiting was a mystery), I also put their food dishes on top of a small cardboard box (about 3 inches high), to elevate it since I read somewhere than it can help with some kind of acid reflux or something. Could just be an old wives tale, but since this combined with heating up the food seems to be working, I don't care to experiment too much with it just to figure out which variable is the most important. :)