Cat with sudden GI crisis, sibling to cat with chronic GI issues. Getting desperate.

I started posting here back in November about my cat Peanut's long term issues with vomiting. That issue is still not resolved with no clear diagnosis and is a roller coaster ride for sure. She seemed to be doing better with some dietary changes. I wanted to go raw eventually, but can't get the cats off kibble. So I at least had switched to Nature's Variety limited ingredient Turkey kibble. I tried tons of different wet foods being very careful about ingredients and even made home-cooked chicken with Alnutrin. I made bone-broth for them. I also switched to freeze-dried treats, in cooked chicken and raw rabbit. Peanut was taking her "Vet's Best Hairball Relief Digestive Aid" very well as a treat every day that has psyllium, slippery elm bark, and some probiotic and digestive enzymes. I thought we were doing better overall. She even went 3 weeks betweens vomits.

I kept trying to decrease their kibble meals to encourage them to eat more wet food, but they were stubborn and seemed less and less interested in the wet food. They started to loose a little weight and Peanut starting vomiting again about 1-2 times a week. In an attempt to peak their appetite I decided to try some new flavors and gave them some of the Fancy Feast Classics beef for a couple of days. I had been previously avoiding beef and fish since they are more likely to be irritants to an IBD cat, but was desperate to get them to eat more. The next day I wake up to find large piles of vomit. Peanut's brother Red is very agitated and vomiting multiple times, then he had some very watery diarrhea and no appetite. He was previously my best good little eater with no digestive issues. Later that day Peanut is vomiting, but continues to eat and have normal stool. So I figure this is just one of her normal flare ups, but very unusual for Red.

After two days Red is still eating hardly nothing at all and very lethargic. I take him to vet and they do an abdominal x-ray. Three vets looked at the x-ray and show it to me. There were very angular gas pockets in his intestines and they were all bunched up. They say it looks like he has eaten something like string that is stuck and cinching his intestines into a tight mass. They said it was possibly only inflammation, but the foreign body they suspected could do massive damage if not removed promptly. So he had surgery that day and they found no foreign body. His lymph node was very inflammed so they did a biopsy on it. It showed no cancer and also ruled out bacteria and fungal causes. Vet said it was most likely a viral cause that was either introduced or a latent infection flared for some reason?? He got an injectable antibiotic, anti-nausea meds and sent home feeling pretty crappy. Got home to find Peanut now had watery diarrhea as well and had vomited multiple times. We were told to give both cats the anti-nausea meds (ondansetron), but Peanut continued to vomit. I took her in for a shot of Cerenia and fluids. They both got the ondansetron and an appetite stimulant (mirtazapine) and finally started to eat and put some weight back on. Baby food helped kickstart Red's appetite too.

Red got his staples out today 10 days post op. We have had no vomiting with either cat, but still some lingering diarrhea issues to work on. Now my question is *** happened! They don't go outside or are around other cats. The beef is something they don't normally eat, but I wouldn't expect that severe of a reaction. My third cat (their brother) had no issues, and neither did the dog who regularly cleans up their leftovers. I don't leave wet food out longer that 20-30 minutes. The homemade food I made hadn't been served in over a week (and if anything I overcooked that rather than undercooked).

So now I am left trying to figure out what to do next. I am going to order some better probiotics to try after reading here about the Nexabiotic and S. boulardii. Maybe will get some of the slippery elm bark powder too. They seem to have developed an aversion to the Vet's Best pill after throwing up the psyllium bulked up vomit that day. I even opened a new bottle and it is still a no go. I will probably have trouble getting them to eat the supplements. They don't fall for hiding in treats, are so fussy with wet food, and the pilling I had to do so far is very unpleasant for them. I asked the vet about B-12 injections since I am willing to do that myself, but she said since Peanut usually just vomits with no diarrhea it isn't helpful for that.?? I am running out of ideas and any further advice would be helpful.

So all three cats are related? But only two got sick?

One of my cats has a problem with vomiting, she possibly has ibd. Prednisolone completely stops the vomiting for her.

If both were that sick than I suspect something genetic like ibd or food allergies. If Red doesn't have any further problems in the future than it could have been viral or bacterial. You can drag in viruses on your shoes or clothing.

I would probably not feed beef again. My allergy cat did horrible on it.

My IBD kitty had an immediate negative reaction to beef.  Within I know less than 30 minutes he vomited everything he had eaten, shame to because he really liked beef.  From what I have read many kitties don't tolerate beef, IBD kitties or not.  Of course since he had at that time undiagnosed IBD the reaction to the beef started a long flare that resulted in multiple vet visits and a round of two different medications.

All three kitties are indoor pets almost 2 years old from the same litter. Their mom is a (now fixed) feral that lives outside. Of the three kitties, Tubby is the only one that has never really had any issues at all. Both Red and Peanut had problems with diarrhea caused by parasites as kittens that Tubby for some reason seemed immune to. They all got medicated for it though. Red hasn't had any issue since he was a little kitten until now, but Peanut has this persistent on and off vomiting for over a year. Tubs is a 16lb stocky male, Red is a 12 lb slim male, and Peanut is a 9lb slim female.

I'm definitely not trying the beef again, I just was so desperate to get them to heartily eat anything other than kibble. Now with this latest episode we have back-slid. I am leaving unlimited kibble out for them to try to put some weight back on the two. I even had to add back in their old kibble that I give their mom since they showed no interest in basically anything they had thrown up. I can't totally blame them. If you throw up something many times you kind of associate it with feeling crappy, even if it is not what made you sick.

I almost hope it was a viral thing so that it will not be a chronic issue with Red like it is with Peanut. Don't know how Tubby dodged it??

I told the vet I was fine just treating Peanut as if she had IBD without the biopsy to check for cancer. I said I was trying some food changes and the digestive aid, but wondered if she shouldn't be on something else to help. I was hoping we would try the b-12 shots and maybe try a super low dose of steroid for awhile. Instead she gave me the bottle of ondansetron. I believe that just blocks the signal that triggers vomiting. I used it to get them through this week, but I don't think it is good for long term use since it does nothing to treat the underlying inflammatory cause of the vomiting...right? I would think she would still have inflammation and damage going on, but the lack of vomiting would give the false impression that she is doing better, until suddenly she isn't anymore.

All this time researching and money spent on this so far, and we aren't really any better off. I feel like I am failing them.

I tried the the Nature's Variety limited ingredient Turkey kibble and my cat also vomited it He has chronic colitis. He used to throw up his food all the time. When i took him to the vet she had me put him on 10-12 weeks of rabbit and a SEB cocktail twice a day that included chlorophyll and a probiotic and nothing else, no treats , no other proteins. It worked really well. I do homemade now, mostly raw but she recommended the Royal Canin rabbit and pea. I bought some cans of it in the beginning and he really like it. I did start by adding some fortiflora on the top. I am now slowly, really slowly,  introducing new proteins and so far so good as he no longer vomits.

He was previously a kibble addict .So it was hard to get him off kibble too. I use to just put some canned in the kibble where it was like suck to it. I also would put some of it on his gums to get him to taste it. There are some good videos on you tube that I watched about transitioning to raw and wet food.  Hope that helps.

Ondansetron stops nausea and reduces vomiting. It doesn't cause any major side effects and is safe to use as long as you need to.

If this is ibd, I would want to wait a week and try a course of steroids. In case this was an infection you want them to be fully recovered before starting steroids.

With your cat that vomits constantly, have you tried a course of steroids to see if there is improvement? The steroids should reduce the intestinal inflammation.


My cat does not vomit as long as she gets her steroids on a regular basis. If I miss a dose she will throw up. I started with half a pill every other day, down to 1/4 a pill every other day. Sometimes she still has issues on the one fourth pill, but I think that is because it is hard to split them into such small doses equally.

If she has an episode I will give her half a pill.

Thanks for the tips guys. I think I have read every article on http://www.ibdkitties.net/ multiple times over the past few months, plus every article, post, and video on ibd, raw food, home-cooked, transitioning, supplements, etc. It is overwhelming!

I am not sure why the vet is opposed to the b12 shots and the steroid. Maybe it it because Peanut is so young and she doesn't want to get her started on long-term steroid use. Maybe the vomiting is seen as less harmful to her than if she had diarrhea all the time too? She probably thinks I ask too many questions and do too much Googling, but I have never just blindly followed any doctors advice so it is nothing personal. She seemed genuinely perplexed as to why I didn't want to put my asymptomatic chronic kidney failure dog on prescription food laden with they very corn gluten and chemicals I tried so hard to avoid. How do I bring up these subjects with vet? Basically like "I need your help, but don't agree with everything you recommend, can we do this instead. My Googling conflicts with your education and decades of experience." :doh3:

I spent this weekend doing yet more reading and bought the Nexabiotic 21 probiotic, Jarrow S.boulardii, NOW slippery elm bark powder, Jarrow B-right vitamins and some empty gelatin capsules. They still have some issues with soft stool so I am hoping that will help, at the moment I am just giving a little canned pumpkin and a tiny amount of yogurt. I have the european style plain yogurt always on hand. It has nothing in it but the milk and live cultures. It is runny and easy to syringe a tiny amount in.

There are some things that I think are significant regarding Peanut, that the vet seems disinterested in. One is the frequency of the vomiting. Most of the time when she is not having a horrible flare the vomiting is right around one week apart. I will look at the calendar and see it has been about week, and boom... within a day or two she vomits.

She also has this habit of licking metal obsessively and I noticed she does it more right around the days she vomits. Sometimes she will start licking the metal dog crate immediately after vomiting. Is she looking to replace minerals? Or is she already nauseous, and licking to bring on vomiting (like when dogs and cats eat grass).

I also trim all 3 cats nails and Peanut's nails are noticeable more brittle than her brothers' nails. You also can't see much of a quick in them at all even though they are clear. I think that with people that deficiencies sometimes show up in the nails?