Reoccurring Vomiting

We have a 2 year old cat that has been having bouts of reoccurring vomiting for the past year.

Out of nowhere, she vomits up whatever food she's recently eaten and then continues vomiting every time she eats or drinks anything until we get an anti nausea shot from the vet.

This happens every ~2-3 months, seemingly randomly.

We've taken her to the vet, they've run blood work and checked her for diseases and everything has come up normal.

So far, we're working under the assumption that she has a food allergy of some sort.  Her food history is as follows:

1. When we first got her she ate Exclusive, she was good on this for ~1 year

2. After a second round of vomiting, we were suggested to switch and went to California Natural, this worked for ~4 months then vomiting reoccurred

3. Science Diet Sensitive Stomach, this worked again for ~2-3 months

4. Hydrolyzed Protein food from vet - she never ate this consistently and vomited it up immediately

5. Instinct Grain Free Turkey Meal - she's eating this for ~3 months and just started vomiting again today.

We thought that it was a chicken allergy which is why we switched to the instinct and this has worked really well until this morning when she puked up a whole stomach of food.

The only other health issue she has is she sometimes scratches the bridge of her nose until it's raw.  This had cleared up over the past 3 months, coinciding with the switch to Instinct food but has reflared up last week shortly followed by this vomiting.

If anyone has any thoughts about what we could do to manage this or cure it we would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks for your help!

Have you tried switching her to a raw diet? 

We have not tried a raw diet yet, we've tried lots of different variety's of dry food (and some wet, she doesn't like we foot) but haven't gone the raw diet approach yet.

Do you think that would be worth trying?  Would it be better to go with a homemade raw diet or to start with something premade?  

Honestly, if she's on kibble right now, she might not take to raw immediately, but you never know.  Cats sometimes don't know what's good for them in the food department, strange as that sounds.

But back to your furbaby.  Could it be IBD?  Has anyone ever discussed that?  Here is a site about IBD, just in case you want to read up on it: http://www.ibdkitties.net/index.html

As to raw, we have a raw forum right here at TCS, as a sub forum under Nutrition.  To get you started, here is the Raw Feeding Resources Thread http://www.thecatsite.com/t/240809/raw-feeding-resource-thread.  It can be daunting, but when feeding raw, you want to be well informed .

You can take the easy route, which is what I did when I first started, and learn about it while you are feeding commercially prepared nutritionally complete meals.  Most natural pet food stores sell 2 - 4 brands of frozen raw food.  Natures Variety, Bravo, Primal and Stella and Chewys.  Those are the ones available in my area.  Since you suspect allergies, just be sure to check the ingredients to make sure you are getting a single source protein.  There are lots of other brands available too, some that don't have any fruits and vegies in them (I think ALL of the above have a tiny bit of them in them...no idea why, really ), but depending on where you live, you might have to order via the internet, or find a store than can special order for you. 

If you're thinking about going the raw route, mosey on over to the Raw Forum and check out the threads.  There's a LOT going on over there!  It's becoming all the rage

It's possible that each food takes X amount of time to irritate her, and then she has a "flare-up." In my experience, a food allergy is usually accompanied by itching of the neck and face and pulling of the hair. There are also food intolerances. Here's a general breakdown:

1. Food Allergy

2. Food Intolerance (associated with IBS - irritable bowel syndrome)

3. IBD - inflammatory bowel disease (inflammation of the of intestinal tract and digestive organs)

These two links are helpful in defining the difference between a food allergy and a food intolerance:

http://feline-nutrition.org/answers/answers-is-it-a-food-allergy-or-food-intolerance

http://www.petmd.com/blogs/nutritio...food_intolerance_or_food_allergy#.UUN21DeyJIw

Scratching of the nose could indicate an allergy to a plastic food/water bowl, although I've heard some cats' lips get swollen from this.

When the vomiting starts, how long are you waiting until you switch to another food?