My cat vomiting, not eating or drinking, i'm very worried

Hi, last Sunday night my kitty Boo Boo out of the blue started vomiting, at first I just blew it off as a hairball incident or eating too fast or something of that nature. When she continued to vomit the next day, I made an appt with her vet. I took her in Tuesday afternoon and they examined her and did x-rays. I brought her back Wed. Morning for a barium scan as they were concerned she might have a blockage. They kept her overnight and did the barium test and more x-rays and put her on an iv for hydration. The x-rays and the barium scan showed no blockage, they said she seemed fine and was alert and not vomiting. She was given a small amount of food and kept it down so I was allowed to bring her home today. At first she seemed fine she ate a lil bit of food and I gave her some treats. A few hours later she vomited agsin and a couple of hours after that she did it again. She is currently hiding in the laundry basket and I am beside myself and don't know what to do. The vet offered no possible explanation for the vomiting other than determining it was not from a blockage.Anybway does anyone have any advice on how to get her to eat or how stop the vomiting?

Hi There

 have you given your pet Temptations treats at all.Our cat was addicted to them but got very sick and vomited .Took me a while but when

I looked up reviews on the brand Temptations found it was so for many others.just a thought.Hope your little one comes right.

No, she has never had Temptations treats. She eats Blue Buffalo dry food for indoor cats and she and my other cat Pinky share a can of Friskies wet food each day. I am sick with worry, I am up now because I heard her yarking she hasn't eaten anything since yesterday evening and she is just throwing up foam. She is doing the exact same thing she was doing before I took her to the vet. I can't believe she didn't vomit the whole time she was at the vet and she's done it 3 times that I know of since I brought her home yesterday afternoon. I don't know what to do. We spent $800 on our credit card at the vet over the last 2 days only to have her still doing the exact same thing. The vet did not offer any possible cause for the vomiting, they just know she doesn't have a blockage, well at least I think they are like 99.9% sure she doesn't have a blockage. I don't know if the next step would be exploratory surgery and cringe at the thought of how much that will cost. I am willing to pay it though if it means my baby will be well again.

Try to see if Blue Buffalo makes a 'sensitive system' food, since I changed to that in a different brand, my cat almost stopped vomiting at all, and he too was vomiting daily. Try something bland too, like canned meat baby food, he has to get something in his stomach. Maybe the treats are too rich for him.  If an x-ray doesn't show any kind of blockage I would hope surgery wouldn't be necessary. To me it sounds more like irritable bowel syndrome. I would get a second opinion before I would do surgery. Good luck!

This is exactly the way my kitty is when he has IBD flares.  He had his first flare when he was only 18 months and the multiple vets I took him to also thought he had swallowed a foreign object.  He was hospitalized twice for supportive care and multiple non-invasive diagnostics looking for a foreign object.  He would finally come out of it only to have it happen again.  He would also be constipated.  It was kind of a chicken or egg thing, was the constipation causing the symptoms, or was the anorexia causing the constipation.

After 6 years I found a vet who diagnosed him as having IBD and put him on a steroid.  Of course one episode does not automatically mean IBD but I think many vets don't consider it because the symptoms are atypical.  IBD usually involves diarrhea.

This is also what my kitty was doing when she had IBD flares. She was fine until she turned 3 years old and then we were having bouts of vomiting and constipation. I was constantly taking her to the vet. It took us 4 years to find a vet that finally brought up possible IBD. She started out getting vitamin B injections, fluids and enemas when needed but she was still having some problems so in August of this year I gave in and we started her on steroids.

I'm not saying this is what is wrong but I would maybe try a different vet. Good luck and I hope your kitty starts feeling better soon.

It does sound like IBD/IBS. As common as it has become I'm surprised your vet did not suspect this once she saw no blockage.

I'd recommend the first thing to do is to get her tummy settled down.

For the next few days she should only be fed chicken or turkey only baby food, diluted with water or pediolyte for hydration, which is VERY important.

If you warm it, she very well may eat it on her own, but if not then she will need syringing.

You want her to consume at least 2 jars a day. Take away everything else, no dry at all.

You should see very fast the vomiting stops. The baby food is super easy to digest, and after a few days her system will have calmed down.

Then you will slowly introduce canned food, not friskies but something like a limited ingredient one. Natural Balance, Blue Buffalo, Nature's Variety Instinct all have limited ingredient foods. (LID)

Thank you all for your replies and helpful suggestions. I will get some baby food and pedialyte on my way home from work tonight. I will let you know what happens.

tydydgrll said:

Thank you all for your replies and helpful suggestions. I will get some baby food and pedialyte on my way home from work tonight. I will let you know what happens.

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Perfect!

One thing to mention though, if you want to see how she will eat on her own rather than having to syringe her, I would recommend diluting with water, if she laps it up well then she may very well eat it on her own, but if you do jave to syringe her, then dilute with the pediolyte.

This is because they are not crazy about the taste of the pediolyte.

Sometimes it can help to heat up the food a tiny bit as well. Makes it smell better to them and so is more attractive. And baby food ( meat) can truly be a lifesaver for many sick cats.

I don't know why but this issue seems to be more and more common in Cats ( as well as people!) but it certainly makes me wonder what's in my food and water and so on these days?!? Be careful and keep a close eye on her. My Sis nearly lost her Bengal from side effects of the medicine! He fell over and went into seizures, so they had to try a number a different meds before finding one he could tolerate.

Absolutely follow catwan707 advice. Seems to me she has a problem with the food since while at the vet they fed her something else and no vomiting.

Again no dry and a LID canned food once she has settled down.

Hi, all just wanted to update you all on my kitty Boo Boo. She's doing really well, when I got home from work on Friday, she had eaten some Fancy Feast Broths that my hubby gave her and had been fine with it. I gave her a lil bit of the turkey baby food I had gotten for her, she lapped that up and really liked it. Then all of a sudden sudden she ran over to the dry food and ate a lil bit of that too and then went over and drank some water. I put switched the dry food out to the Blue Buffalo Basics which my other cat likes also. I' m not sure what happened with Boo, but she is eating and drinking again and running around like her usual self. One thing I want to mention is, in my desperation to figure out what was wrong with her I tried to think what new thing we had brought into the house recently that may have affected her and the only thing I could think of was we had switched the kitty litter from clay to corn. I googled the corn litter and up popped an article recounting a woman's story about her 3 cats being sickened and 1 ultimately dying from aflatoxin poisoning from the corn kitty litter. Hubby and I switched their litter back just to be safe. I don't know if this was what caused Boo to be I'll or not but we are not switching back! Sorry this is so longwinded, thank you all for your help and concern. Happy Holidays to everyone!

What great news!! So glad to hear it.

Who knows, might have been the litter?...........hard to know for sure.

Take care!

Just goes to prove that corn is not for crapping or eating.

Number one...Cat Treats are just that...treats. You are only supposed to feed them SPARINGLY as I'm sure you know and do. Like candy for your kids. But, Ive seen some people feed them to cats like food...not good at all. We had diarrhea issues and vomiting with our two kitties. After we stopped feeding them Hairball formula cat food and switched to Sensitve Stmach food, much of this stopped. This is only one avenue of trying to skirt around a problem but it worked for us. Good luck with you fur babies!