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- Sep 23, 2022
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Hi - I made an account just to add to this thread to help others who were desperately googling this issue. There is a lack of resolution for many stories, so I just wanted to say what helped us. I experienced the exact same thing with my 4.5 year old cat Sushi, about 10 days after introducing a new 6-month-old kitten Bento. We thought we did a by the book introduction, with isolation first, then room swapping, then brief supervised visits, then letting Bento roam around longer during the day and still sleep in her own room during the night. Feliway running the whole time, tons of treats and love, and the cats were already starting to sit next to each other and it was pretty peaceful, so we decided it is ok for us to let Bento join the family and sleep with Sushi and us during the night.
The following day Sushi started vomiting profusely, terrible diarrhea, can’t keep anything down and is just overall lethargic/hiding. After 2 days of that, I noticed blood in her diarrhea and we took her to the ER during the night. Long story short, this whole thing lasted for 5 days. 2 ER visits, a vet visit, a ton of tests that all came back clean and $3000 later, what ended up helping Sushi is a night on IV fluids and separating Bento back into her base camp again. She started eating and keeping things down on day 6 after coming back from the hospital, and had her first normal poop in a week on day 7.
Since every possible physical cause was ruled out and Bento has a clean bill of health too, we had to accept the explanation that it was all stress related. It took me a long time to come to terms with that explanation, because it basically means that I did this to my baby girl and it just feels awful as a pet parent who was just trying to do right by their baby and give them a friend. It was extremely validating to find this thread and see I am not the only one to have such an extreme reaction to stress, because I watched a million cat introduction videos and not a single one of them even mentioned a possibility of a cat getting this ill to stress.
In hindsight, we believe what happened is that we went too fast for Sushi with the introduction. It was a mistake to let Bento sleep in the same room as us only 10 days in - and another thing that possibly could have served as a precipitating event to trigger massive stress is that we bathed Bento the night before it all started (shelter kitten formerly on the streets who stank like hell and really needed just this one bath after her spay scar healed). It was a traumatic experience for all involved, including Sushi because she was vocalizing and acting really distressed while it was happening. Not sure if it had anything to do with the vomiting, but it probably didn’t have an already stressed system.
Anyway, just wanted to share what happened with us to help others. We are not giving up on Bento because she is ours too and we love her, but we massively backed off and started a slow re-introduction now that Sushi is eating and pooping again. We are increasing the amount of time they spend in contact during the day, but will keep them separated during the night for a long while, since Sushi doesn’t seem to be able to fully relax in Bento’s presence and that full relaxation time is critical for health and immune system.
Another tip we discovered helped us that I haven’t seen anywhere else is that getting a second of everything seems to help with jealousy. We got a second cat tree, a second heated bed, a second basket on the table, etc. Bento went right for all of Sushi’s things and it seemed to really distress her, but now they each have one of their own, and I think it’s helping her feel a little less like she is losing territory and a little more like she now has 2 of everything. Good luck with your kitty - hope this helps!
The following day Sushi started vomiting profusely, terrible diarrhea, can’t keep anything down and is just overall lethargic/hiding. After 2 days of that, I noticed blood in her diarrhea and we took her to the ER during the night. Long story short, this whole thing lasted for 5 days. 2 ER visits, a vet visit, a ton of tests that all came back clean and $3000 later, what ended up helping Sushi is a night on IV fluids and separating Bento back into her base camp again. She started eating and keeping things down on day 6 after coming back from the hospital, and had her first normal poop in a week on day 7.
Since every possible physical cause was ruled out and Bento has a clean bill of health too, we had to accept the explanation that it was all stress related. It took me a long time to come to terms with that explanation, because it basically means that I did this to my baby girl and it just feels awful as a pet parent who was just trying to do right by their baby and give them a friend. It was extremely validating to find this thread and see I am not the only one to have such an extreme reaction to stress, because I watched a million cat introduction videos and not a single one of them even mentioned a possibility of a cat getting this ill to stress.
In hindsight, we believe what happened is that we went too fast for Sushi with the introduction. It was a mistake to let Bento sleep in the same room as us only 10 days in - and another thing that possibly could have served as a precipitating event to trigger massive stress is that we bathed Bento the night before it all started (shelter kitten formerly on the streets who stank like hell and really needed just this one bath after her spay scar healed). It was a traumatic experience for all involved, including Sushi because she was vocalizing and acting really distressed while it was happening. Not sure if it had anything to do with the vomiting, but it probably didn’t have an already stressed system.
Anyway, just wanted to share what happened with us to help others. We are not giving up on Bento because she is ours too and we love her, but we massively backed off and started a slow re-introduction now that Sushi is eating and pooping again. We are increasing the amount of time they spend in contact during the day, but will keep them separated during the night for a long while, since Sushi doesn’t seem to be able to fully relax in Bento’s presence and that full relaxation time is critical for health and immune system.
Another tip we discovered helped us that I haven’t seen anywhere else is that getting a second of everything seems to help with jealousy. We got a second cat tree, a second heated bed, a second basket on the table, etc. Bento went right for all of Sushi’s things and it seemed to really distress her, but now they each have one of their own, and I think it’s helping her feel a little less like she is losing territory and a little more like she now has 2 of everything. Good luck with your kitty - hope this helps!
