Hi there XXXXXXX,
Thank you for your question regarding your cat who has been vomiting ongoing for 2 - 3 weeks now. This sounds like it must be very frustrating for you and for her! As you can imagine there are quite a myriad of possible causes for ongoing vomition in the cat, however, hopefully we can try and rule some of these in and out.
First and foremost, it is very important to work out if your girl is either vomiting or in fact regurgitating. If she gobbles her food down extra quickly and 'vomits' within 5 - 10 minutes of eating, then this is most likely a regurgitation problem rather than a vomition one. Likewise if she 'vomits' between half and hour to an hour after eating and the vomitus looks like undigested food, it could quite well be regurgitation again particularly if it appears tubular and compact. Regurgitation occurs either because a cat is simply eating too quickly, or because there is a functional defect with the esophagus or food pipe.
If this is deterimined to defintiely be vomition (your cat has abdominal effort and 'heaves' , plus this occurs sometime after finishing a meal), then there are quite a range of possibilites. Your girl might well have a condition known as IBD or inflammatory bowel disease or a food sensitivity, in which the immune system reacts to foreign proteins (i.e. any sort of food) in the gut, and resonds with vomition +/- diarrhea. There are other endocrine diseases such as hyperthyroidism and even sometimes Diabetes can also cause chronic vomition, as well as liver and kidney disease, and these are much more common in older cats.
I really think your girl needs further diagnostics at this stage. Your Vet may want to take carry out several x-rays or an ultrasound of either or both of the chest and abdomen of your girl. Xrays or an ultrasound would also be very helpful in this case. To rule out hairballs - stick with a hairball diet and supplement her with a teaspoon full of cooking oil 3 - 4 times per week ongoing. This helps coat and bind any hair in order to carry it out of the GI tract. Continue to brush her thoroughly as you have been. You could also consider doing a food trial with your Vet's help to rule out IBD in this girl.
Best of luck with your girl and please let me know how you get on with your local Vet. As I say, I really do think it is important to have further diagnostics run in this sort of case - primarily an xray and/or ultrasound. Please reply if you need further info won't you.
Thank you for your question and please now click ACCEPT.
Kind Regards,
Dr M D Edwards
Cat Veterinarian
Veterinarian - BVSc (DVM equivalent)