Cat People - Vomiting Issues

[scbusf]

Background: 5 year old indoor short-hair cat. She has always been a vomiter. We have done the slow feeding mat (which I learned about here), she gets 6 small meals a day, changed foods (probably 6 different dry foods, including 2 prescription ones), done bloodwork (normal), and done a fecal exam (normal).

She still vomits - most of the time, it's right after she eats her first meal of the day, no matter how small that meal is.

What else can we try? I am so over cleaning up cat puke.

[Paige]

You could try switching to wet food if you haven't and give her a probiotic supplement like FortiFlora, but there's plenty of options. My foster cat had some vomiting issues and the fortiflora helped a lot. I use it because it's given to me by the rescue but I gave my own cat a different kind. Does she have any diarrhea? 

Edited October 4, 2020 by Paige

[scbusf]

Just now, Paige said:

You could try switching to wet food if you haven't and give her a probiotic supplement like FortiFlora, but there's plenty of options. My foster cat had some vomiting issues and the fortiflora helped a lot. I use it because it's given to me by the rescue but I gave my own cat a different kind. Does she have any diarrhea? 

No diarrhea. I haaaaate wet food, but at this point, I'm willing to try anything. Also, we have another cat, so whatever we do for one, we pretty much have to do for the other.

[City Mouse]

My cat has started vomiting quite a bit. When he does vomit, the food often does not look like it has been chewed much. The one thing I have done that seems to help a bit was to reduce the volume of food available at any one time. 
 

I have seen dog dishes designed to slow dog who eat too fast. I wonder if something like that would work for cats?

[Pawz4me]

My one cat who vomited frequently was eventually diagnosed with IBD. We didn't do an endoscopy/biopsy, which is the way to definitively diagnose, but we did a barium x-ray and the vet said he saw enough there to totally convince him to diagnose her. She did mostly okay for many years (only needed occasional steroid injections) on Purina One sensitive system dry food. I never could get her to eat much wet food at all. But of course food for any animal is very individual. We were extremely lucky to find one she did well on soon after her diagnosis.

Edited October 4, 2020 by Pawz4me

[Pawz4me]

dp

Edited October 4, 2020 by Pawz4me

[Paige]

I think the wet food may help. Cats tend to love the probiotics. If you get some FortiFlora and put it on they may be more willing to try it, but probiotics may be worth a try on its own before trying something you hate. 

[regentrude]

My cat has IBS. She gets steroid shots a few times a year that calm the inflammation and stop the puking.

[Laurie]

Another vote for trying wet food!

My cat has IBD (his symptoms are vomiting, and occasionally diarrhea).  He only eats canned food, and he loves Merrick's grain-free turkey pate .  I also add some water to his food for extra hydration and warm it up for a few seconds in the microwave.   He gets a daily dose of liquid prednisolone.  Recently there was some blood in the vomit so the vet told me to start giving him a cat dose of Pepcid each day and that stopped the bleeding right away.   

I hope you find something that helps your cat!

[Jean in Newcastle]

I feed my cat wet food in the bathroom and keep him in there for an hour after his first meal.  If he's going to throw up it will be in that time.  It's so much easier to clean up in there.  I am watching this thread because wet "digestive sensitive" food has made it go down to a couple of times a week instead of daily but it's still too much.  I do spread the wet food over a tray with a spatula to slow down his eating as well. 

[Laurie]

5 hours ago, scbusf said:

 

She still vomits - most of the time, it's right after she eats her first meal of the day, no matter how small that meal is.

 

I wanted to add, my cat also does this first thing in the morning, but before eating.    With him, he does have kidney problems which contributes to this, but he also does a lot of grooming at this time, then sometimes coughs up a hairball along with the liquid.  Lately, I've been combing him in the evening to see if this will cut down on the early morning stuff.   He's a shorthair cat, too, but he still gets hairballs.   My son tried using a Furminator comb on him recently and it looked like there was enough fur removed to cover a second cat!  (Poor kitty also ended up with a bit of a bald spot so I would urge caution if you try one of these!)

[Bensmom2]

I have a vomitter. He is almost 15 and has had a sensitive tummy his entire life. We spent the early years trying everything we could think of and all kinds of food. He can not eat any kind of dry food period! He does best with the higher end wet food brands that do not contain fillers. His vomiting was reduced when we quit dry food and switched to the cheap canned food but he was still getting sick way too often. The cheapest of the “higher end food” we have found that works for him is Blue Buffalo.  He still vomits about once every 7-10 days but he is maintaining his weight and seems healthy. 
 

Good luck with your fur baby!

[scbusf]

All right, I'll pick up some wet food to try. Can I do a combo? I mean, I know I have to gradually change the food over. Could we work towards wet food only first thing in the morning and then a mix of wet and dry the rest of the day?

I've never used wet food, so I don't really know how it works!!!

[katilac]

Watch your flavors and see if there's a pattern there, whether wet or dry food. 

My senior cat only eats wet food these days (which I hate very much) and we only give small amounts at a time bc she will eat too much and get sick. I was getting frustrated at giving such small amounts only to have the puking return, when dd suggested that it seemed to happen when she ate the seafood varieties: anything like salmon, mariner's catch, seafood variety, whatever. We stopped giving her that and apparently dd is very smart! She seems to tolerate the chicken and tuna flavor, but nothing else. 

If you're giving anything with seafood flavors, you might try continuing the small amounts with only blander stuff like chicken and turkey. Worth a try before venturing into the disgusting world of wet food. 

[katilac]

Also, make sure you are brushing her as often as possible, that can help quite a bit also. Short haired cats as well as long. We like the glove thing for the short hair kitties. 

[Ausmumof3]

Optimum grain free food fixed it for us.  

[Reefgazer]

A few things to consider, because I had a lifelong puker that got worse with age.  Hairballs will do this until the hairball is tossed up.  Kidney failure will also do this, and it can start surprisingly early and it gets worse with age.  I assume the vet has looked at her kidney function?

[Jean in Newcastle]

It has been like The Exorcist around here for the past two days.  Vet has checked my cat out multiple times and all labs etc. come back normal.  I'm going to try a hairball formula wet food (just came today) and the cat probiotics someone mentioned on here.  I need to try brushing him as well. 

Edited October 5, 2020 by Jean in Newcastle
grammar is our friend