Puking cat...

[StillMedusa]

Portia is nearly 16 and a semi long haired beastie.
She has always puked hairballs..a lot. She is soft silky, delicate and a naughty tortie.. can't be picked up, touch her tummy and you'll need stitches... takes three adults and a pillowcase to get pills into her.. she's awesome!

But over the last week she has puked daily and while there is usually a hairball in it, there have been a few pukes of straight cat food. She's a tiny cat.. never more than 7 pounds in weight and these days about 6.5 max but passed her last check up fine (bit the vet )

I'll get her to the vets as soon as they re open, but I'm a bit concerned. Vet said she had slight thickening of her intestines (age related) a while back.. could this be the problem? She's not a cat we can give meds to easily.. she was a farm kitten, semi feral, and while fabulous.. best purr ever.. is not handleable for medication.. she absolutely panics if you attempt to pick her up.

I've not had a cat this old before sadly.. is this normal for an ageing cat? Is there anything I can do to help? She eats little, but loves felix doubly delicious, or canned tuna.. vomits any dry food...

(and her she is about to turn off my laptop because I didn't immediately drop everything to go attend to her demands ...

[cozietoesie]

There are so many possible causes but I know that when Seniorboy started vomiting a lot (at about 16) it was down to his teeth - which were, admittedly, quite horrible. A full dental sorted him out.

Good luck at the vets and let us know how she gets on.

[cozietoesie]

PS - and what a beautiful girl she is.

[TheGirlOnTheLanding]

LandingCat had similar vomiting issues and also severe weight loss at a similar age - vet said intestines were thickened and suggested it might be either chronic inflammation of intestines or cancer. Started him on steroids and he's been much better, put the weight back in, stopped bringing up entire meals but we know that longer term, it's likely to develop into cancer. It does mean he has to take tablets every day (and now as he's older he has even more tablets to take) so if your beastie is stressed out by taking tablets you may have to weigh up whether it's worth that stress, if it turns out to be a similar diagnosis. Good luck, and hope you get to the bottom of it soon.

[StillMedusa]

Ah, thank you for that... it sounds very similar. She could have steroid injections at the vets but there is no way we could get pills into her... just a worm tablet is a battle of epic proportions! I shall try and find out when I get her there.