Possible anxiety induced vomit

[kirukan]

Hi all,

I posted here about my IBD kitty a bit ago, and everyone was so helpful. I was wondering if anyone has experienced this with their cat and what direction I should possibly look.

I have a 3.5 altered male who we have had since he was 5 months old. He was very hard to win over, a feral kitten who was terrified of everything. It took us two months of constant effort to integrate him into our household, but we did do it. He is now very snuggly and playful, good at self-regulation with food, and generally a good cat, other than being scared of a lot of things still. He has no obvious health issues. He is comfortable being around the kids, even when they are crazy and running around, and sleeps with me every night.

Our problem is that he vomits.

It usually contains dry food, sometimes a lot, sometimes a little. He will go weeks without vomiting, and then have a rash of them. He eats well, he has normal urination and stool. We are pretty sure it is tied to stress and anxiety. He had not vomited much, relatively, over the last year, but his best bud, our IBD kitty, passed almost two weeks ago. My SO left a few days after for a work trip, and now he has thrown up almost every day. I'm his main person, and I'm home a lot (stay at home parent), but he has been much more scared and jumps over things he didn't used to. His buddy was very steady and calm and I think that helped him be calmer as well.

After we had this major health issue sneak up on us with our other cat, I'm a little worried about him now. We used to just accept that this was a part of him and minimized his stress as much as we could. But now I feel a bit obligated to check it out a bit.

The biggest worry for me is how insanely terrified he is at the vet. The last time we took him into a vet, he nearly climbed up into their drop ceiling, knocking shelf items over, and expressing his anal glands on the wreckage. We switched to an in-home vet, but it really isn't much better for his experience other than we are less likely to lose him. They've suggested we sedate him for the next appointment as they couldn't really do a good examination and certainly would not have been able to take blood.

Are there any suggestions for supplements or diet change or anything we could try before his next vet appointment? I will probably have them come out again in late April, as he is due for his annual then, so might have them draw blood for some baseline testing and see if anything is off. Anything in particular I should look into that might help us with this without doing a lot of testing? We just got over some pretty expensive vet bills and trying not to do anything too drastic if I don't need to, and also to stress him out as little as possible.

We will be getting him another friend, but for personal logistics will be waiting till late April as well. I know it will help, but I also know it will be stressful during the adjustment period, and anticipate plenty of vomit.

Thanks for any advice!

Also as a diet note:

He gets Hill's Adult Nutrition dry food (at will) and Sheba wet food in the evening.

 

[Caspers Human]

We are pretty sure it is tied to stress and anxiety.

Our eldest, Casper, does something like this. He is a rescued cat and that made him food-insecure. He needs to know that there is food available at all times or else he gets anxious and, the next time we put food out, he'll scarf it all down until he pukes. He also tends to mirror the mood of the house. If somebody gets upset while Casper is nearby, he will get upset. Then, he'll go to his food dish, eat until he's full then, twenty minutes later, you'll be cleaning up cat puke.

Most of the time, we just deal with it. We talked to our vet and she agrees, because of him being abandoned and having food insecurity issues, Casper is a "Scarf and Barf" cat.

 

[fionasmom]

I agree that this might be a case of extreme anxiety, but understand your concern in the face of your recent loss of your other cat. Since you have an established relationship with a mobile vet, I would ask for a sedative which might likely be gabapentin. Let them determine dose based on what they already know about him, such as his weight. They can also tell you the best time to administer it. I have a boy who has to be sedated for anything at the vet's including a blood test. He is not the least big scared, just incredibly good at fighting back and I don't want him or the staff to be injured.

My personal bias with natural remedies is that you are on your own with determining dose and administration and are essentially taking anecdotal evidence that it will even work in the first place or is entirely safe for a cat.

 

[dianajune]

My senior kitty (probably around 15) will sometimes scarf and barf too, although t not as much as he used to. As for dietary changes, make sure they are done gradually so as to not upset his tummy.

You could try Purina Gentle dry food, it's one of the brands that my cat eats.

There are times when I wonder if he has IBS or IBD too, given some weird stuff I'm seeing. But that's a post for a different thread.