[JenUrich]

I'm sorry to start another thread about vomiting, but I had some questions particularly concerning sensitive tummies in cats. My cat, Random, has had vomiting problems for about the past 9 months. At one point he lost a lot of weight and due to bloodwork results the vet was concerned it could be lymphoma. However, that was ruled out after a biopsy showed no evidence of lymphoma at all. The vet's diagnosis was that something was causing irritation in Random's stomach and we switched food to the Science Diet sensitive stomach and started Prednisilone.

Vomiting subsided but I became concerned about side effects of long-term Pred use. Recently we switched from Pred to daily Tagamet. Has anyone had experience with Tagament for sensitive stomach problems? Are there any negative side effects from long-term use?

The first 2 years of Random's life, I saw NO stomach problems at all. It's only been within the past year this is happening. Is this common for cats to suddenly develop sensitive stomachs and does it ever go away? Everytime I feed him canned cat food or treats, he vomits all night long.

Are there places I can get sensitive stomach canned food or treats? He only has dry stuff right now, but it would be nice to give treats. Any websites or stores that someone could recommend would be great.

Thanks in advance,

Jen

 

[JenUrich]

By the way, when he vomits it's typically undigested food. Not sure if that's important to mention, but I thought I would anyway!

 

[Wayne]

When I first got Tiger, my lynx-point Siamese, I noticed after having her for about 6 months, that she would barf up most of the food that I feed my menagerie. It was soon realized that Tiger had digestive problems and that I couldn't feed her regular dry cat food. So, I began to feed her separately, and with kitten chow and kitten canned food. This took care of the problem. Even though this has been nearly 2 years ago, I still feed her separately from the others. She still eats a little at a time and more often than the others. Being a Siamese, she has no trouble telling me when she is hungry and she seemingly understands most of what I say to her. 8) . I hope this helps in identifying what to do for your kitty.

 

[JenUrich]

Thanks a lot! It's good to know that other people have ongoing problems like this. I guess I assumed it's something that should get "fixed" at some point. Perhaps he will always have sensitive digestive issues though.

Anyone else have sensitive stomach canned food or treat option ideas?

 

[JenUrich]

P.S. I checked the Solid Gold, Felidae, and Wysong websites and none of the food products listed mentioned one specifically aimed at sensitive stomach kitties. My vet recommended Science Diet, which has been working so far (all they have is dry stuff), but after more research I'm wondering if it's the highest grade food with sensitive stomachs in mind that I can find out there.

 

[kitkat]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

Basically I had similar problems with one of my cats Sugar always throwing up. This was when I first got her when she was several months old and I was so scared I would have to rid of her. She threw up on all the foods, Purina, Meow mix, all that stuff I fed her when she was little. Vet said she was fine, and healthy. Anyways they said try Science diet Id/ I mixed in proplan chicken dry bits with it b/c it was just too plain and I didnt want to punish both my cats with just dry bland food. Well she didnt throw up for a looooong time and it worked. Basically Sugar has a sensitive stomach and I recently switched to try out Felidae and Chicken Soup for Cat Lovers.

Sugar doesnt throw up treats, or canned food which I feed them every morning but I'm not sure what kind of canned foods there are for sensitive stomach. I think you can find better foods than Science Diet. Although other foods may not say for sensitive stomachs, I'm sure they're better than greasy bland Science Diet since it is all natural ingredients also, which is what Im thinking makes Sugar throw up, un-natural or bad corn ingredients.

Treats, maybe try Tuna Caviar for cats, Sugar loves it and it is so flaky and dissolves so easily I dont know what she can throw up with that. She also likes dried shrimp treats, maybe your kitty just needs all natural dried treats.

Hope everything works out for you and your kitty! :lol:

 

[JenUrich]

Thanks so much! I just ordered a bag of dry Felidae and some cans as well. I'm hoping that the natural ingredients will be less irritating to Random's stomach than what he's getting now. I can't believe I didn't even know that I was feeding him what could be a suboptimal food, when I asked the vet to recommend the best food I could possibly feed him I trusted that SD was it. I just spent the past hour reading ingredients and viewing websites for a variety of what is actually considered high grade food, and I feel like an idiot for not knowing that there are other options out there. So, we'll see what happens as I slowly try converting to the Felidae instead.

 

[kitkat]

Keep us updated on whether she keeps throwing up too...I'm curious if these natural foods will help our little sensitive babies... :wink:

 

[AngelZoo]

I hope your cat is doing better now, sorry I'm a little slow to respond, I have no life outside of work anymore

I hope the felidae treats your cat well, I highly recommend this food for your average healthy cat.

You need to find a food with HIGHLY digestable protein matter in it, and ones which are not typically associated with food allergies, things like lamb, duck, venison, various fish meats.

There are perscription diets out there for these problems, which you have to obtain a perscription card from your dr. for this, tend to be a bit more expensive, and not always the best as a whole, ingredient wise.
So in the mean time, I encourage you to find super premium brands of food with the above characteristics. (No, SD, Waltham & Eukanuba Perscription are NOT super priemum)

 

[JenUrich]

Still waiting (im)patiently for my Felidae to arrive! I suppose it's only been 7 days, but I thought it'd be here by now. How long do shipments typically take?

 

[Raina_Stardust]

A product called Dr.Goodpet Digestive Enzymes may help your cat since the food she's vomiting is undigested. The enzymes help to break down the food she eats and it keeps a healthy level of bacteria in the digestive tract. There is also a homeopathic remedy called Digestive Upsets that I've used with success on cats with tender tummies. Both of these can be ordered from http://www.jefferspet.com

 

[kristi]

My cats used to throw up a lot (well, at least one or 2 of them--we have 4). We switched to Felidae and they did great, but I can't get it locally, so we switched to Nutro (available at Petsmart) and they're doing great. Nutro Natural is better than Nutro Max--just read the labels.

Perhaps if your cat starts to do better on better food, try weaning of the drugs gradually? You can always go back to full dose if needed.

I also recommend natural treats, although my cats don't have problems with any. But they don't get them often, either.

Best of luck!

 

[JenUrich]

Hmm, depending on how the Felidae works out, I think I will try the Dr. Goodpet next. Are there any negative side effects from it? I read the website and I didn't see anything like that mentioned. In other words, could it hurt at all to give this supplement to him?

In terms of "natural treats", are there are any particular someone could recommend?

I've had little luck weaning him off of the Tagamet yet, but I'm hoping with the arrival of better food that will change. My vet told me that Tagamet was 100% safe to use with no side effects. However, in doing some internet research I've found that it tends to have more drug interactions (however he's not on anything else so that's ok) but also that it has a temporary rebound effect of actually increasing the stomach acid if the medication is stopped. But it's hard to tell which internet sources are reliable and which are not. Does anyone have any personal experience with Tagamet?

In good news, his vomiting is down to about once or twice per week. (As opposed to about 3x per day!).

 

[JenUrich]

Felidae finally came this week! The cats both love it and there have no vomiting incidents (yet). I'm feeding about half old food and half new food at this point, they should be completely converted soon.

This might sound funny, but I was amazed at how good the canned food smelled. Up to this point, we've fed fancy feast as the canned variety and it always has that pungent icky cat-food smell. The felidae actually smelled good! No, I promise I didn't sample the goods.

 

[JenUrich]

I'm back again with more questions on this!

Ok, after we switched to Felidae I noticed HUGE improvement - the vomiting almost ceased. A few weeks ago it started again on a daily basis. Now, the vomiting coincides with our moving to a new townhouse and I have a theory that Random was getting into our moving boxes, chewing on cardboard, eating random things he shouldn't (ha, his name is so appropriate for him), etc. It took a couple of weeks to complete the move, but we are now in the new place and he's still vomiting. I took him to a new vet who uses a lot of homeopathic remedies in addition to modern medicine and she prescribed homeopathic phosphorous (I started another thread just on this topic) and said that Random seems to be a scavenger and once we are settled in the vomiting will hopefully cease. We have new carpet that still pills a lot and even though I vacuum daily I'm sure he's able to eat to little pieces here and there.

My question is: now before he vomits he hacks quite a bit first, is this normal? Sometimes he just hacks and no vomit follows. It's almost as if he has a hairball, but when I look through his vomit I don't see hair - usually just fluid and occasionally food. Could this be a sign that something is stuck somewhere? I think I will have X-rays done next week anyway just to be sure, but does anyone else have experience with excessive hacking before the vomiting happens? Before he would just throw up with no "precursor".

 

[JenUrich]

Oh, I forgot to mention, I never ended up ordering the Dr. Goodpet Digestive Enzymes or Digestive Upset that Raina_Stardust had mentioned since the Felidae had worked so well. But I would very much like to order it now, is one better than the other? Can you give both in conjunction with each other?

 

[coco & little guy]

Hi Jen-

For treats, we give our guys deli turkey or chicken or ham. Like the meat you would make a sandwich out of. Actually they eat this several times a day. Like you I was literally dumbfounded when I learned about what was in cat food.

They eat dry during the day when we are at work. We have had great luck with Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul, and are in the process of finding some other good dry foods, so they don't get bored just eating the Chicken Soup. I finally found a place to get the Felidae. We have not had luck with Newman's Own, or Blue. We just got samples of Felidae, Wellness and Inova. Hopefully they will agree with some of these.

I have heard of people giving tuna as a treat, but I have been hearing alot about tuna being high in mercury, and that doesn't sound like a good thing to me. Our guys love the deli meats. It can be expensive, but different meats go on sale on a rotating basis at our local grocers. Little Guy will vomit if he eats too much too fast. I hold myself responsible for that. He hasn't really had any accidents in quite a while now.

There's my $0.02 for you. Good luck.

Cheers,

Bryon

 

[Redlady]

Salvador has a sensitive stomach and an absorption problem. We feed Science Diet Sensitive stomach. We tried Felidae, but he wouldn't touch it. All 3 indoor cats eat the SD and they have no issues

Hope your kitty feels better!