You put down your feline friend’s favourite food, see her eating, and you expect the bowl to remain empty when she’s done, no problem. Except an hour or a couple of minutes later there it comes, the food looks pretty much untouched, just looking slightly churned up when she brings up.
That naturally raises the question: why does my cat keep throwing up her food?
Some cases are clearly and straightforward. Perhaps the cat vomited from eating too fast, swallowing large amounts of fur, responding to a sudden change in diet, or a brief case of stomach irritation. Regardless, don’t just treat repeat vomiting as “just a cat thing.” Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine suggests that any cat who vomits more than once weekly or who exhibits other sick symptoms should be brought in to the vet.
One other crucial aspect that most owners are probably unaware: vomiting and regurgitation are not the same thing. Recognizing the difference could provide your veterinarian with a huge clue about the location of the offending problem.
First, Determine Whether Your Cat Is Vomiting or Regurgitating
Once there is food on the floor you may feel it is simply spitting up. Veterinarians draw quite a bit of a line between two very distinct processes. Vomiting is an active event, a dog may look beforehand like she may be nauseous, lick her lips, drool, may retch or stomach contents may be forcefully expelled after abdominal cramping.
The substance regurgitated can have varying amounts of food, bile, fluid, foam, or other stomach contents.
Regurgitation is a passive event without the intense abdominal abdominal churning that vomiting seems to elicit the matter, regurgitated food is frequently not even digested and may take on the shape of the esophagus and appear in a more tube like manner. This could mean an issue in the esophagus and regurgitation vs. Vomiting and an issue of the stomach, intestines and or a systemic cause. If it is safe to get your smartphone, an online video clip will give a your vet a clear and quick picture of what is going on.
Why Does My Cat Keep Throwing Up Her Food?
There is no “one size fits all” answer. Frequent vomiting can be associated with an issue with the eating behavior, with the diet, gastrointestinal disease, parasites, drug therapy, toxins, or even a disease of another organ system.
The character, timing, the amount vomited and your cat’s behavior between vomits will help to differentiate the possibilities.
1. Eating Too Quickly
It would appear that some cats believe any meal should be eaten quickly before another comes and helps itself.
If a cat eats too quickly and is eating so fast that she takes food and air in with it far quicker than her stomach can cope and is sometimes shortly after bringing the food back up more often if it barely looks different.
This may sound like vomiting but it may be regurgitation.
If your cat is bright in all respects, holding her weight well, using the litter tray normally and brings up identifiable food at intervals after eating it is probably a good idea to look into how fast she is eating.
Slowing down the speed of the meal can often help. Eating smaller meals spaced throughout the day, puzzle feeders and other kinds of feeders that make food harder to gobble may help cats with this, a strategy often recommended alongside proper cat feeding schedule guidance.
2. A Sudden Food Change
Cats can be highly sensitive to diet changes.
One common cause of digestive upset is an abrupt change from one food source to another. This change can occur at the ingredient, fat, flavor, texture, or introducing-rate level.
A gradual change will be a less dramatic shift for the digestive system then suddenly changing from the previous food to the new food. If you notice your catvomiting a few days after you changed her diet, consult your veterinarian about the changes you made and when you made them.
Don’t experiment with different food changes until you pinpoint a cause.
3. Hairballs May Be Part of the Story
One or two hairballs isn’t usually a concern for a cat; naturally, cats swallow hairs they lick from their body to clean themselves. Many hair will continue through the digestive system; however, it is also possible for it to become balled up andvomitedat various points. Cats who spend a good deal of time grooming or owners of long-haired cats will generally pass an odd hairball occasionally.
Do Not Turn Your Back, but Do not make hairballs the excuse;-Cat Owner; But it should be stated – there is one issue on the mind of cat owners-just because a cat is producing an abundance of a large quantity of hairballs that will NOT excuse for excessive grooming or vomiting as “it’s just normal’.
It may be a concern to veterinary medicine that frequent vomiting – hairball OR NOT – often means something is disturbing. The hair could actually be so significant a blockage may form and cause the digestive system blockage called intestinal blockage; according to Cornell,”A large amount of ingested hair may cause a blocked intestine, resulting in intestinal obstruction, which can be very fatal”;
4. Stomach Irritation or Gastritis
There are a variety of reasons for the inflammation of a stomach. Merriam Veterinary Manual classifies gastritis in cats as, “Inflammation of the stomach… Causes sudden or chronic vomiting. Possible causes of gastritis include foreign objects, parasitic organisms, infections, ingestion of toxins and poisons, immunologic disorders, medications, dietary insult, and diseases of other systems.”
The stomach irritant may result in the vomiting of a variety of substances such as bile, foam or even other types of material. These will give you a clue about the illness, but are, more than likely, not capable on their own, to render the ultimate diagnosis. Yellow fluid may indicate the passage of bile through the vomiting tract. Froth may develop when the stomach is nearly empty. Neither description alone does not make an effective diagnosis.
5. Food Intolerance or Adverse Food Reaction
Cat may eat something that causing GI signs.
Food related reaction can cause vomit, diarrhea, alteration appetite or skin signs. Not every case is a real allergy to food; an intolerance may rather require a diet plan.
If your cat vomit recurrently after consuming a specific food, then make a note of ingredients and the time of every Vomit. It gives much more additional information compared to cat “doesn’t like the food”.
6. Parasites Can Cause Repeated Vomiting
Another possibility is gastrointestinal parasites, especially when vomiting is accompanied by loss of appetite or weight loss, diarrhea or other alterations to your cat’s digestive system. According to Cornell, certain gastrointestinal parasites might be responsible for chronic vomiting and appetite loss. However, the cat may demonstrate only subtle symptoms of being infested with a particular parasite, depending on his past health history, outdoor exposure, hunting, contact with others (felines or humans) and past antiparasitic control use. Your veterinarian can perform a stool or other test based on those factors.
7. Inflammatory Bowel Disease Can Cause Chronic Vomiting
If vomiting is seen more than as an occasional incident it’s time to consider whether or not there is a chronic gastrointestinal disease. Feline Inflammatory Bowel Disease, or IBD, is an inflammatory disease of the GI tract. The signs Cornell lists are: vomiting, diarrhea, bloody stools, weight loss, lethargy, and anorexia.
Vomiting becomes chronic when the inflammation occurs in the stomach and/or the upper portions of the small intestine.
IBD is not a condition that an owner is able to confidently diagnose based solely on the presence of vomiting; gastrointestinal and systemic disease can often cause the same signs and continued vomiting will necessitate a more open workup.
8. A Foreign Object May Be Blocking the Digestive Tract
Objects cats don’t know shouldn’t be chewed/swallowed: length of string or ribbon, bits of plastic, hair ties, small toys or other house items. A foreign body that causes the gut to be irritated, or causes an obstruction of the gut may manifest as an animal that vomits. This is more worrying if the cat is vomiting plus, loss of appetite, abdominal discomfort, letharginess, inability to defecate, attempts to retch and throw up repeated unproductively. Do not leave to expect it to resolve without advice.
It is possible to cause a significant problem quite rapidly, if the contents are indeed obstructed by the object and do not move onwards.
Don’t pull out string from the rectum or mouth if it is visible externally; the string could be tied into some sort of internal knot and you could tear the intestine by pulling at it.
9. Kidney, Liver, Thyroid, or Other Systemic Disease
Not all vomiting stems from the gut. Cats also can suffer from illnesses related to other organ systems and show gastrointestinal signs including nausea and vomiting. Systemic illnesses, such as liver disease, kidney disease, hyperthyroidism, among others, can also result in vomiting or other symptoms that resemble something to do with the stomach and intestines.
This can be why it’s so important to get a closer look at your older cat with chronic vomiting and not just attribute it to having a ‘sensitive stomach’, as a senior veterinarian at Cornell writes.
A veterinarian may require diagnostics such as blood work, imaging, urinalysis or other forms of testing to explore possible issues beyond the digestive system depending on what information they obtain and find during a physical examination.
10. Certain Medications or Toxins Can Trigger Vomiting
Some medicines can lead to upset stomachs, but poisons can lead to vomiting and other life threatening effects within the body.
In particular, cats are susceptible to some household poisons and plants. Vomiting after ingestion is not necessarily a sign the danger has been avoided.
Only induce vomiting if instructed to by a veterinarian or an animal poison-control professional. Cornell warns against it, as some poisons cause further damage upon vomiting.
Contact a vet immediately if you suspect poisoning and know the name and label of the substance ingested, since prompt action following pet poison control guidelines can be lifesaving.
11. What Looks Like Vomiting May Actually Be Coughing
This is an easily confused event. While gagging, neck extended, and violent “gagging motions could represent your cat attempting to throw up hairball, it could represent that the hairball actually not come up–and instead represent coughing. Your cat owner of cat asthma or feline bronchitis could even mistake these events as hair ball orvomiting events (VCA). Provide your veterinarian with these observations –including a Video would also be beneficial, should a particular instance seem representative..
What the Vomited Food Can Tell You
The appearance and timing of the material are useful pieces of evidence.
Food that looks almost unchanged: This may suggest regurgitation, particularly when it occurs soon after eating and without obvious retching.
Partially digested food: This is more consistent with material that has spent some time in the stomach before being expelled.
Yellow or greenish fluid: Bile may be present, particularly when the stomach is relatively empty.
Foam: Frothy material can occur with stomach irritation or when there is little food in the stomach.
Blood: Fresh blood or material resembling coffee grounds can indicate bleeding and warrants veterinary attention.
Merck notes that gastritis can produce vomit containing bile, froth, fresh blood, or digested blood resembling coffee grounds.
The appearance is informative, but it should never be treated as a home diagnosis.
How Often Is Too Often for a Cat to Vomit?
However, not one magic number alone can define whether cat vomiting is nothing to worry about, or a sign of illness in all cases. What Cornell generally warns is to have their cats seen by vet if cats vomited once a week or more, especially if there were accompanying symptoms. That number becomes smaller when coupled with warning signs in a cat.
Pay attention to whether your cat is:
- losing weight
- eating less or refusing food
- unusually tired or weak
- drinking much more or less than normal
- urinating differently
- experiencing diarrhea
- showing abdominal discomfort
- vomiting blood
- repeatedly vomiting without keeping food or water down
These accompanying signs can be more significant than the vomiting episode itself.
When Vomiting Becomes an Emergency
Repeated vomiting can lead to dehydration, and cats become sick fairly quickly once a major underlying cause is involved. The signs that a cat should be seen by a vet right away, according to Cornell, include lethargy, weakness, anorexia (lack of appetite), blood in the vomit, altered drinking or urination, and concurrent diarrhea.
Contact your vet for emergency attention if your cat is:
Vomiting persistently and not keeping fluids down
Extremely weak
In obvious pain in the abdomen
Vomiting blood
Having trouble breathing
Collapsing
Possibly eaten a toxin or foreign object
Don’t forget to have your vet examine a cat that seems to be heaving or retching continuously without actually vomiting, particularly if the abdomen seems painful and swollen.
What You Can Do Before the Veterinary Visit
The most beneficial action you could take is write up the vomiting down find more feline health guides in our Pet Care resource center. Note the time of vomiting – instantly right after a meal or hours afterward – how the vomitus seems, have her eaten not, has she consumed, the pattern of her stool – or pees have altered -.
Also note recent changes such as:
- a new food
- new treats
- medications or supplements
- access to plants or chemicals
- changes in grooming
- exposure to other animals
- possible ingestion of string or small objects
Whenever possible, get an photograph or video of the vomiting, even if it is unpleasant- it will greatly help you in giving a good history to the vet.
Do not administer any anti-nausea medication, or any other medication to your cat without your vet’s instruction to do so.
Why Repeated Vomiting Shouldn’t Be Dismissed as “Normal for Cats”
Cats will vomit from time to time. Everyone gets hairballs. Another scenario may be that the cat had too large a meal so fast it decided it didn’t need to stay down.
But again there is always an odd time here or there versus something that has become more of a pattern.
In VCA’s information about vomiting in cats they tell us, that even the frequent passing of hairballs and vomiting can hint that the cat isn’t happy in their “tummy”! Which is very important, as cats are often masters at disguising illness. They appear completely “fine” while we are in reality losing weight, or developing internal disease of the “gastro intestinal” variety, systemic illness, etcetera etcetera. I am NOT telling any one to panic over the individual case.
What we want to watch for are those shifts in the norm.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Why does my cat throw up undigested food right after eating?
If the food comes back up soon after eating and looks largely unchanged, your cat may be regurgitating rather than vomiting. Eating too quickly is one possible contributor, but recurring regurgitation can also indicate an esophageal problem and should be discussed with a veterinarian.
2. Should I be worried if my cat throws up food once?
One isolated episode in an otherwise healthy-appearing cat does not necessarily mean there is a serious problem. However, monitor your cat closely for additional vomiting, appetite changes, lethargy, diarrhea, blood, or other abnormal behavior.
3. Is it normal for cats to throw up hairballs frequently?
Hairballs can occur because cats naturally swallow hair during grooming, but frequent vomiting should not automatically be considered normal. Recurrent vomiting can sometimes indicate gastrointestinal disease or another underlying problem.
4. Why does my cat keep throwing up but still seem hungry?
A cat can maintain an appetite despite some gastrointestinal problems. Continued hunger does not rule out disease, particularly if vomiting is recurrent or accompanied by weight loss, diarrhea, or changes in drinking and urination. Persistent vomiting deserves veterinary assessment.
5. What should I feed my cat after she throws up?
There is no single diet that is appropriate for every vomiting cat. The safest approach depends on the suspected cause, the cat’s age and health, and how severe the vomiting is. Rather than making repeated food changes on your own, ask your veterinarian for feeding instructions, especially if vomiting continues.
6. Can eating too fast make a cat throw up food?
Yes, rapid eating can contribute to food coming back up, particularly when the material is undigested and appears shortly after a meal. Slowing the pace of eating may help some cats, but repeated episodes should not automatically be attributed to eating speed.
7. When should I take my cat to the vet for vomiting?
Reach out to a veterinarian in cases of frequent vomiting, especially once per week or more. Also contact when vomiting is accompanied by such symptoms as lethargy, weakness, decrease in appetite, weight loss, vomiting containing blood or diarrhea, excess drinking or urination or abdominal pain. Get emergency help with severe vomiting, inability of a cat to hold down water, suspect ingestion of toxins or foreign material or the cat generally appears to be gravely ill.
Conclusion
If you keep asking, “why does my cat keep throwing up her food?”, the most important point is that repeated vomiting should not automatically be dismissed as a normal part of being a cat. Relative minor occurrences come with simple answers — overeating, hairballs, change in diet or stomach upset — but, according to some studies, vomiting can also signal a parasites, inflammatory bowl disease, an intestinal block, kidney disease, an autoimmune disorder like kidney disease, or even hyperthyroid condition.
Don’t focus on one single instance — look at trends. Your feline has a problem if you notice vomiting, loss of appetite, low energy, weight loss, diarrhea, bloody vomit, or shifts in her drinking habits or bathroom patterns. Cornell University suggests seeing a vet for any cat vomiting more than once a week.
The ideal outcome of monitoring doesn’t just end with preventing vomiting — it will also explain why it’s occur ing. It’s essential for your veterinarian to know what your pet vomits consist of, what time frame after feeding is likely; you can even keep up with her appetite and usual behaviors as this information will assist them in properly diagnose -and treat-the condition.
