Do you remember the first time you saw your cat vomiting? From the initial panic to the calmness now, we are already very familiar with cats’ vomiting behavior. However, familiarity does not mean correct understanding. Let us take you to correctly understand the diseases that may be caused by cat vomiting.

Vomiting? Maybe it's common! Every cat owner will quickly learn a common sense in the novice stage - vomiting behavior in cats is very common. So for many people, they see cats vomiting every once in a while. From the initial panic to the gradual calmness, everyone regarded the cat's vomiting as normal. However, don’t think that just because you know something, you can replace your veterinarian. Although cat vomiting is common, it is not necessarily ordinary.

Vomiting? It can also be dangerous. Vomiting in cats can be minor or major, and it may be a minor problem or it may be a serious illness.

Physiological or pathological? Some people divide cat's vomiting into physiological and pathological. In fact, this is not accurate. No matter what kind of vomiting it is, it is a reaction of the cat's body. It's just because cats' vomiting "mechanism" is relatively developed. When they eat inappropriate things or have hair balls in their stomachs, vomiting the foreign objects out will not harm their health, but will protect themselves. But some vomiting is caused by a serious illness, and the cat's body's regulatory system cannot survive it safely.

Easy to be ignored. It is because vomiting in cats is so common that it is easily ignored. Among the many cases sent to the hospital, there is one disease that can be called a delay due to "wait and see", that is, the cat has obviously been sent to the hospital. Necessary, but the owner ignored it, thinking that he could observe more, which resulted in a delay in sending the cat to the hospital. Among them, vomiting is an obvious symptom, but it is ignored by many owners because it is not taken seriously.

Which types of vomiting require immediate medical attention?

Sometimes a cat's vomiting will be accompanied by other symptoms. If it is serious, it will need to be sent to the hospital.

Severe vomiting several times a day or over a longer period of time.

Vomiting every day for several days.

With severe diarrhea.

With fever.

He often retches and cannot spit anything out.

Lack of energy and loss of appetite.

Vomiting sometimes not only reflects gastrointestinal problems, but may actually cause vomiting when lesions occur in most organs of the body. For example, severe kidney and liver disease, intestinal blockage, peritonitis, etc. So if vomiting is accompanied by other symptoms, you must go to the hospital.

VomitDifferent, treat differently:

1. When spitting out gastric juice: Sometimes cats will spit out thick transparent liquid with a little white foam. This is the cat’s gastric juice. Sometimes the gastric juice will be a little brownish-green. This is because the vomiting is too violent and some bile has been vomited out.

Why is this happening? This is a typical cat vomiting on an empty stomach. When there is no undigested food in the stomach, the cat will also feel uncomfortable in the stomach and cause vomiting. In addition to improper eating, carnivorous cat food often contains too much acidic substances. If the fasting time is too long, it will cause excessive gastric acid secretion, making the cat uncomfortable and even leading to gastritis.

Solution: Eat smaller meals more frequently. Don’t leave the cat’s food bowl empty for too long. The feeding method of early meal and late meal is actually not suitable for cats. It is best to eat small meals frequently to maintain the cat’s normal gastric juice secretion level.

2. Undigested food: Sometimes cats may spit out undigested food, such as whole cat food pellets. Vomiting is in the shape of long and thin strips, which are squeezed out of the cat's esophagus. There is less gastric juice in the food, which means that the food is spit out before it reaches the stomach, which is a reflux condition.

Why is this happening? Some cats are born with a narrow esophagus or a compressed esophagus for some reason. If they eat too much too quickly, or the food is too hard, they will be spit out through the esophagus, which is a manifestation of reflux esophagitis. This situation can be improved with surgical treatment or conservative feeding methods.

Solution: Soft food and wet food method. Cats with this problem must eat refined food. It is best to feed wet food that is completely mashed into a paste, and they must feed less each time to allow the food to pass through the esophagus and enter the stomach bit by bit.

But if the following things are present in the cat’s vomit, it means it is very dangerous. There is no need to observe other conditions. The cat should be sent to the hospital immediately.

3. Vomiting parasites: If a cat has parasites in its body, the early larvae and eggs will lurk in the digestive tract, especially the intestines. However, if there are parasites in the vomit, it will indicate the number of parasites in the body. And the size is already terrible.

4. Incompletely digested food: It often happens that the cat has just finished eating and spits out the food quickly within a few minutes. The spit out food has not been fully digested and there are still many formed particles. Even sometimes, after a cat has just eaten cat grass, he will quickly spit it out in whole sticks or clumps.

Why is this happening? It may be that the cat eats too much, too fast, or in a hurry, or it may be that the food is too heavy on the cat’s stomach, causing indigestion. Sometimes cats are intolerant to certain ingredients in their food and will vomit like this. This situation is especially likely to occur during the stage of new cat food replacement.

Solution 1: Prescription food. If your cat has food intolerance, it is best to give it a hypoallergenic prescription food. It is important to note that cats with food intolerance are also prone to producing soft stools and require special attention.

Solution 2: Small roots of cat grass. Cats with poor gastrointestinal function may sometimes suffer from indigestion and vomiting if they eat cat grass. It is best to control the amount of cat grass that these cats eat. Feeding 2 to 3 pieces each time is enough.

5. What is vomited out are hair balls, coats and hair balls: Vomiting hair balls is a behavior exclusive to cats. When the fur licked into the stomach becomes clumped to a certain extent, it irritates the gastrointestinal tract. , will be spit out by them. Hairballs are usually mixed with gastric juice. Sometimes they are just a few hairs, and sometimes they look like they have been compressed and have a hard texture.

Why is this happening? A large number of hair balls gather in the digestive tract and may block the intestines, so cats rely on some stimulation to spit out the hair balls. Crude fiber food and cat grass can have this effect. But not all cats will vomit hair balls. Some cats have better digestive functions and can excrete fur through their feces. But for indoor cats, they should be given food that removes hairballs regularly to avoid hairball syndrome.

Solution 1: Comb your hair often. Whether it is a long-haired cat or a short-haired cat, you can comb out the excess hair through regular grooming to reduce the amount of licking into the coat.

Solution 2: Hair removal products. Keep some high-fiber hair ball foods or hair ball remover creams and healthy oils (such as olive oil) at home. Occasionally feeding your cat some can lubricate and decompose hair balls in the body.

There is blood in the vomit. If the vomit is mixed with blood, it may be that the vomiting is too violent or a sign of severe gastritis. It may also be that the gastrointestinal mucosa is scratched by a foreign body and causes bleeding. Pay special attention to whether the cat has swallowed needles or glass. and other foreign matter.

Spitting out foreign objects: If the cat vomits out foreign objects instead of food, such as plastic, tape or other things, it means that the cat has eaten foreign objects. These objects cannot be spit out, and may have caused poisoning in the cat. , or a larger amount of foreign matter is still accumulated in the intestines and stomach.

Vomiting caused by swallowing foreign bodies is a major killer of cats’ health: Among the many vomiting phenomena, vomiting caused by swallowing foreign bodies is very dangerous. In fact, this is something we can try to avoid in our lives.

Accidental ingestion and pica: Once a cat swallows non-edible objects, it may cause serious problems. It happens that cats are very curious animals. When they see some small items, they sometimes want to put them in their mouths and taste them, no matter whether they are delicious or not. In addition to this small probability of accidentally eating, there are also some cats who suffer from pica and especially like to eat some inedible things.

Why is swallowing foreign objects dangerous? Although some foreign bodies cannot be digested themselves, they can often pass through the intestinesExcreted from the body. After some foreign bodies are swallowed, they absorb a large amount of water in the cat's stomach, swell and become larger, blocking the cat's intestines during the downward digestion process, causing other things in the digestive tract to reflux and cause vomiting.

Spit up or not? What are you vomiting? What are the reactions if a foreign object is swallowed? Does being able to spit it out mean it's really safe?

Can’t spit it out? If the cat just retches and cannot vomit, it is much more dangerous than vomiting. This indicates that there may be an object blocking the digestive tract. For example, many cats will retching due to intussusception caused by swallowing thread and thread hanging under the tongue. In this case, you need to take the cat to the hospital immediately.

Is it safe to spit it out? Sometimes the cat will spit out part of the foreign object, so the owner feels safe. In fact, maybe what the cat vomits out is only a small part of what it has eaten, and maybe larger objects are still causing blockage in the digestive tract. Therefore, it depends on whether the cat continues to vomit frequently, whether it is constipated, etc.

If the symptoms are serious, please send them to the hospital for treatment in time.

Preparations before going to the animal hospital

Photos of cat vomit:

The doctor asked you what exactly your cat vomited, but you couldn’t describe it? It's better to let the doctor see you in person. You can put your cat’s freshest vomit in a plastic bag and show it to the doctor. You can also take photos immediately after the cat vomits, so that the doctor can more intuitively see the appearance of the vomit and other specific conditions.

Video of cat vomiting:

The doctor asked you what it feels like when your cat vomits, but you can’t answer it? Then you can take a video and show it to the doctor. Use your cell phone or other electronic device to take a photo of your cat's vomiting moment, which is much better than your ability to describe it. Because most of the time we can't tell whether the cat is refluxing, vomiting, or coughing.

Information on cats eating food by mistake:

If it is determined that the cat vomited due to accidental ingestion, you can try to collect as much information as possible about these items and bring them to the doctor. If the cat has swallowed the medicine, find the instructions for the medicine and take it with you; if the cat has swallowed plastic products, simply bring the remaining remnants to the doctor. This will also give the doctor a rough idea of ​​how much the cat has eaten.

Photos of cat waste:

Sometimes we can also find some clues from the cat's excrement, because when some vomiting occurs, if it is related to disease, it is often accompanied by diarrhea or abnormal defecation. If you swallow foreign objects or spit out parasites, there may be other undigested foreign objects, parasites, and eggs in the stool. If you find such abnormalities in your cat's feces, you can take photos and show them to the doctor.