Frequent hairballs: sign of illness or is a change of diet needed?

The last few days my cat has been puking almost daily. There's always a hairball involved(sometimes she vomits liquid or food, but it is always either followed by or preceded by a hairball, so the culprit is obvious). She has never ever had such frequent hairballs in the 14 years I've had her. She is very fluffy, and winter is coming, but I've never seen so many hairballs! I've been brushing her frequently to help alleviate the problem, but even brushing every day doesn't eliminate the problem 100%. Mostly it just makes the hairballs smaller.

A little background: Growing up, PJ was fed Special Kitty hairball formula(horrendous, IMO, but my parents were in control back then) and usually puked maybe once a week or less. When I took over caring for PJ, about 4 years ago, I switched her over to an Orijen/Acana blend and she never puked on that diet at all. She had hairballs, but they appeared in the litter box rather than in vomit. When she got sick a little while ago, I boosted her calories with Purina Pro Plan Kitten to help her gain weight. She got addicted to the Pro Plan, and no matter what I did I could not convince her to eat her old food. I switched her over to 100% Pro Plan for a while hoping that she would tire of the taste and find her old food appealing again. No luck there. The first couple weeks on Pro Plan were fine, but the hairballs gradually became more and more frequent until we got to this point of cleaning up barf almost every day. I'd like to get PJ back onto a high quality diet, but it seems there's not much hope for Orijen anymore. I've been thinking about trying the new Nutrience Grain-Free formula, perhaps the fish one even though I like the analysis on the chicken one better, to help with the hairballs. I figure a big name brand like Nutrience might have whatever magic ingredient that makes Pro Plan taste so good. Maybe? It's hard for me to tell what this kitty equivalent of MSG is; does anybody know what the magic ingredient is, and why it's not in Orijen?

Do you think a change of diet is the solution to my problem? I've never heard of hairballs being a sign of serious illness(although I'd be concerned about them causing  illness), so I thought I'd ask some people with more experience in case this is a bigger problem than I thought. I don't consider myself experienced, because even though I've dealt with cats my whole life I've never seen illness in any of them until this year.

EDIT: Comparing Nutrience and Pro Plan, it seems like the most significant differences flavor-wise might be the by-product meal and "animal liver flavor" in Pro Plan. Is one of these the secret ingredients I'm looking for? To be honest, I have no issue with either. As scary as by-product meal sounds, I know it is a well-regulated ingredient...in Canada, at least. Not sure about elsewhere. Should I look for a food with these ingredients? Most of the high quality ones avoid these because they sound scary to pet owners.

This is an article written by a vet about hairballs that makes a lot of sense to me. http://consciouscat.net/2010/04/28/some-startling-new-thoughts-on-cats-and-hairballs/

My recommendation is that feeding a species-appropriate diet is never a bad thing. http://www.catinfo.org/

Very nice article, there! Thanks! I'll call the vet today and ask their opinion. Are there any diagnostic tests you would recommend to find issues that could cause frequent hairballs? I noticed the article mentioned IBD, but that seems to be a pretty vague term that is used when no other diagnosis can explain all symptoms. So is there something specific me and my vet should be looking for? What kind of treatments normally follow such things? I refuse to put my cat on Royal Canin.

I'll experiment with some other higher quality kibbles as well. I looked around and couldn't find anything to my standards that contains chicken by-product meal. Hopefully there will be a good one that she likes. She won't touch raw meat at all, so that's out of the question(she likes cooked meat, but I think kibble is better than cooked meat). She eats some types of moist food, but only in small amounts and not nearly enough to meet the minimum required caloric intake for an adult cat. I'm just worried that all the really good kibbles will be less appealing than the Pro Plan... 

prairiepanda said:

 
Very nice article, there! Thanks! I'll call the vet today and ask their opinion. Are there any diagnostic tests you would recommend to find issues that could cause frequent hairballs? I noticed the article mentioned IBD, but that seems to be a pretty vague term that is used when no other diagnosis can explain all symptoms. So is there something specific me and my vet should be looking for? What kind of treatments normally follow such things? I refuse to put my cat on Royal Canin.

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You are correct that diagnosing IBD can be difficult. Sometimes thickening of the intestines or stomach lining is visible on an ultrasound. Some people choose to do biopsies, but that can hit or miss as well. It is often a diagnosis of elimination and trial and error on treatment. Traditional treatment is prednisolone, and a diet change to a very limited ingredient novel protein wet food.

prairiepanda said:

 
I'll experiment with some other higher quality kibbles as well. I looked around and couldn't find anything to my standards that contains chicken by-product meal. Hopefully there will be a good one that she likes. She won't touch raw meat at all, so that's out of the question(she likes cooked meat, but I think kibble is better than cooked meat). She eats some types of moist food, but only in small amounts and not nearly enough to meet the minimum required caloric intake for an adult cat. I'm just worried that all the really good kibbles will be less appealing than the Pro Plan...

Click to expand...

Actually, I would argue that cooked meat is a better diet than any kibble. Kibble by definition must have grains or other starches to bind the kibble together, and those ingredients are not species-appropriate for an obligate carnivore. There are some pretty simple ways to make cooked meat nutritionally complete and balanced if that is something you want to explore. This thread from the Raw & Home-Cooked Cat Food forum describes some of the options available. http://www.thecatsite.com/t/264153/home-cooked-cat-food-resources

Thanks for the link! I'll look at some recipes and see if there's anything PJ would eat. She mostly just likes chicken and liver, as far as cooked meat goes. I wouldn't want to be too dependent on supplements, though. The difference in price between high quality kibble and home-cooked food seems quite large...I'd be tempted to skip some of the textbooks on my list for next semester, but I'm not sure how I'd do without the study material there...Maybe I could do a combination diet? Like kibble in the morning to graze on throughout the day and a home cooked meal for supper? Would that be okay? 

I got an appointment at the vet tomorrow. They will do bloodwork and talk about other tests when I get there.

Nothing is cheaper than kibble, but doing a combination diet is a good compromise. It's perfectly fine to feed kibble one meal and a home-cooked meal another. If that will be regular  (meaning the home-cooked will be more than 15% of her total diet), supplements do need to be added though.

Okay, that sounds good. I think I'll probably do around a 70/30 proportion of kibble to home-cooked to start off and see how that goes money-wise. I think PJ would probably eat a really simple chicken-based recipe. And this way if I ever need someone else to look after her she should probably be okay with just kibble. Looks like I've got a lot of reading to do first, though!

As for right now, I picked up some of the Nutrience Grain-Free fish flavor today and PJ loved it. The ingredients and guaranteed analysis are pretty decent, so I'm glad she prefers it over the Pro Plan. Once I start running out, I'll try once more to get her back onto Orijen. If that doesn't work, I'll see how the chicken version of Nutrience Grain-Free does hairball-wise. I normally go for fish flavors because of the oils and stuff, thinking that's what helps with her hairballs. But that article you showed me has me thinking differently now. It would be interesting to see how the less oily formula does, considering it has much more favorable ingredients than something like Pro Plan. (PJ alternated between both flavors of Orijen before, and both are pretty rich so there wasn't really much to compare in that regard)

Anyway, we'll see what the vet says tomorrow. Hopefully the new food will help.

Okay, this is a bit off-topic, but I was just digging through my freezer to see if I had anything on hand that I could cook for the cat, and came across the snake's food. My cat would never eat a rodent(she's trained to be gentle with small pets, including rodents), but I am curious whether anybody feeds their cats f/t mice? It would seem biologically appropriate, and in theory nutritionally complete(Toothless doesn't need any additional supplements, but she obviously isn't the same as a cat...)...Has anyone tried such a thing?

I have seen a few posts in the raw and home cooked subforum under the nutrition forum.  The ones that I have seen feed thawed whole mice.  I remember one posted a picture of his cats eating mice.

Okay, the vet accepted a vomit sample and took a blood sample. I will have results for both by this evening. She wants me to try the new food for a week or so to see if it solves or improves the problem before running any more tests. That way we can narrow down potential causes and better decide which tests to try, if needed. PJ doesn't appear to be ill or uncomfortable and recovers immediately after vomiting, so we decided that it's safe to experiment more with her diet rather than rushing into thorough testing. 

So we'll see how things go. Once she gets transitioned over to the new kibble, I'm going to try offering her some cooked chicken and liver and see how that goes. Not 100% sure if she'll take the liver, but if not I can probably try the TCfeline stuff with liver added.

I'm curious about mice now, too! I know PJ won't eat it, but I might ask my roommate about trying a mouse on her cat. 

Another thought on the hairballs.... as you read in the article linked to by vball91 about hairballs and IBD, the formation of hairballs means the hair isn't leaving the stomach properly. It doesn't mean kitty has IBD, but something isn't working the way it should.

There are two components:

1) Gastric motility, and

2) Stomach emptying.

It turns out that indigestible solids (hair) are the last things to leave the stomach. It takes very powerful contractions to move it through. These are what we know has "hunger pangs." Kitties that free-feed on kibble often nibble frequently, meaning they never have hunger pangs, so there's nothing pushing the hair out of the stomach. For some kitties, just switching to timed feedings makes a big difference. (It resolved the hairball problem in one of mine). Here are tips on how to make that switch: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/264675/transitioning-free-fed-kibble-kitties-to-timed-meals-and-new-food


Now, what creates the hairball is fat the kitty eats - it binds up with the hair to form the hairball. So you can help break up that hairball by helping make sure the fat is digested properly. You can also help prevent the hairball by improving gastric motility. Both of these can be accomplished by feeding your cat egg yolks once or twice a week. If that isn't enough, a supplement called EGG YOLK LECITHIN (not "lecithin," as that is from soy) can be used. This specifically emulsifies the fat that is binding the hair. For some kitties, though not discussed in this thread, using digestive enzymes will also help.

Here is information on the egg yolks and egg yolk lecithin: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/266178/...using-egg-yolk-lecithin-to-dissolve-hairballs

Here is information on digestive enzymes: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/265741/digestive-enzymes

LDG, I exploded when I saw your name pop up on this thread! Your posts are always so informative!

It seems like there are many factors contributing to PJ's recent hairball issue. If I'm understanding everything correctly, the Pro Plan likely contributed in the following ways:

- New ingredients which PJ's system hadn't been exposed to for many years may have upset some part of her GI tract

- Fat sources in Pro Plan differed substantially from her usual food, so it may have contained more of the fats involved in hairball formation

- For some reason, despite being fed small amounts at scheduled times as usual, PJ preferred to snack on the Pro Plan throughout the day(she used to finish a meal within 3 hours or so)

The Nutrience I got is fairly similar to Orijen, but simpler, so that should knock off the first two points there. PJ also seems to like eating the Nutrience much faster than the Pro Plan as well, so that should address the third point. There haven't been any hairballs since starting to integrate the Nurtience(I started the transition much faster than I normally would, so it's around 60/40 right now for Nutrience/Pro Plan)

I will try the egg yolk, though. If she likes it, I might give some to her once in a while. Even though she never puked when she was on Orijen, I imagine having the hairballs go through the other end might have been a little hard on her system too. It's good to know that simply adding egg yolks to her diet will break things down for her.

Anyway, vet tests came back clear as I expected. I will monitor PJ's progress with the new food and an egg yolk and see how that goes. I'm pretty confident we won't be needing any more tests, though

EDIT: I was surprised to see that PJ was quite happy to lap up raw egg yolk on its own. I didn't let her have very much, because she's never had it before. I'll keep an eye on her stool.

:lol3: :blush2: ...and I frequently blather on, unnecessarily. :lol3:

I'm not familiar with the food, but that's great things are going so well!

It also sounds like things are well in hand! GREAT news the blood work is normal. :bigthumb:

Since she likes the egg yolk, I think some as a treat every once in a while will work out well.

Hi prairiepanda. 

My Sebastian has issues and they started out as frequent hairballs and being slightly finicky with his food. It didn't alarm me at the time because he's a long haired cat that likes to groom and I figured he was just sick of the food I was giving him and wanted a change. Unfortunately, we're now dealing with pancreatitis and possible IBD/lymphoma. I don't want to be "Negative Nelly" here, but it's something to watch out for. I wish I would have acted on his behavior sooner.

I hope it's nothing serious with PJ.