Cat swallowed some curling ribbon

ckelley116

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On Saturday morning, I was in my bedroom when I heard retching noises coming from the hall. I went outside and found my cat, Marley, coughing (or what I thought was coughing). Then I realized that right next to him was a Mylar balloon with red curling ribbon attached. We had already cut the ribbon to keep it out of his reach, but he somehow managed to get to it anyway and evidently ate some. My guess was that the coughing was him trying to bring it up, but nothing ever came up. The ribbon is normal gift-wrap curling ribbon and is probably 1/4" wide, but I don't know how long the piece was - it might've ranged from anywhere from 6-10 inches, possibly (but hopefully not) more. I didn't measure the ribbon after we cut it, so I can't tell how much is missing. I'm hoping that a ribbon that wide isn't going to get stuck on his tongue?

This has happened before - he's obsessed with curling ribbon, which is why we made it shorter. But to the best of my knowledge he's always thrown it up. This time, unless he puked somewhere I haven't checked (unlikely because I've looked everywhere I can think of), it's still there. I've been checking his poop religiously since then and haven't found anything except this afternoon I noticed parts of it had an orangey tinge, which I'm hoping is from the pumpkin I've been giving him to move things along (I'm most likely giving him too much) and not blood.

I called the vet Saturday, about 15 minutes after it happened, and they told me to keep an eye on him. He's been acting completely normal. He's begging for attention, eating, using the litter box, hasn't vomited, is jumping easily onto and off of furniture and windowsills, and lets me pick him up with no complaints. He is a little annoyed with me because I keep lightly pressing on his belly to see if I get a reaction, but he just walks away when I do it - no biting, scratching, crying etc. I've read the other posts on this site where other cats ate ribbon, string, etc. and ended up passing it, but I'm not sure how long I'm supposed to wait before it becomes an issue if it doesn't come out. If I can already see pumpkin, which I didn't give him until 12 hours after the ribbon disappeared, then shouldn't it have worked its way out by now? I hate the thought of just "waiting and seeing" while this ribbon potentially shreds his insides. I'm not sure how much damage some curling ribbon can do in that regard (I did read a post about a cat who swallowed a sewing needle and passed it with no issues), but I don't want it to hurt him. I've slept about 3 hours since Saturday because I don't want to go to sleep and risk him suddenly going downhill without me there to take him to the emergency vet.

Should I call the vet and ask them what to do, or should I just keep watching since there's no indication of any trouble?
 

game misconduct

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sorry you gotta suffer a scare like this your best bet would be calling the vet they can give you better answers along with reassurance as well since non of us are vets
 

fionasmom

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What game misconduct game misconduct says. Call the vet and tell them that you are not finding evidence of anything passing and are getting worried. I had a kitten who years ago ate, unbeknownst to me, part of a shoe lace. She passed it several days later and has been fine for the last 13 years. However, some of this depends on the ability of the swallowed "string" to wrap itself around intestines, etc. Curling ribbon could probably twist more easily than a shoelace which probably was more like a solid object. Not trying to scare you, but I would go to the vet.
 
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