Cat vomiting every night at 4am

[FlyingFlamingo]

Merry Christmas kitties and slaves!

So in todays instalment of random illnesses my cats have (the other one has hyperestesia and a few weeks ago this one had a random skin growth on one of her beans) we have vomiting foamy clear fluid at 4am. This has happened for 4 nights in a row now. She’s perfectly fine otherwise - eating/drinking/pooing/causing chaos wherever she goes. There’s no fur in it and she’s not one for hairballs so I don’t think it’s that. She’s up to date with worming (I have the scars to prove it). Google suggests something called bilious vomiting syndrome due to having an empty stomach so we’ll try some Christmas chicken at bedtime tonight and see how we get on. I am obviously reluctant to go to the vets on Christmas Day and she seems so well otherwise!

Just to add - she eats Blink/Rosie’s Farm and Lily’s Kitchen for wet, and Purizon for dry so no grain. I can’t leave dry down all the time because the other cat gets a bit chonky if she has free access to food.

Any ideas?

I would say she is hungry. Try giving her 3 smaller meals per day?

Is she overweight? Can you feed her a bit more, before you go to bed?

No, she’s not overweight but my other cat can’t be trusted with free access to food. I’m going to try a bedtime feed tonight and fingers crossed for a full nights sleep!

I got those tilted/slanted bowls, which are are meant to reduce or prevent vomiting. My cat has not vomited once since I got them. Not sure if that would help.

Thanks, but it’s not food coming back up so it’s not a case of her eating too fast.

One of mine does this if she's too hungry. I now have two timed feeders that go off five times a day. I needed two, otherwise fat cat will eat all of vomit cats food...

You can also get microchip feeding bowls which might be an option?

In dogs, that’s a classic sign of pancreatitis, especially if it’s ‘bile’ rather than bringing up last meal.

Cat needs to see a vet asap, but what we found helps with our dog (chronic pancreatitis) is feeding four small meals a day rather than two. So approx 8am, 1pm, 5pm and 10.30pm. The vet said that the 4am vomiting is due to the digestive tract being empty and irritated by the pancreatic secretions.

Lemon we have similar cats then

I’ll try a meal last thing at night and see if that helps. If she had pancreatitis what would the other symptoms be?

@FlyingFlamingo the signs of it ‘rumbling’/ in the chronic or beginning stages, are nausea and vomiting (especially at night), diarrhoea, lethargy, being off their food. When having an acute attack, they’ll be in a lot of pain - it’s quite obvious something’s wrong when it finally flares up.

Our cat had a terrible upset stomach a few weeks ago and eventually had foamy bile after her tummy was empty of all the regurgitated food. The vet said it was because there was literally nothing else to come up. She was absolutely fine the next day, although we kept her on boiled chicken for 24h on the vet’s advice, so presumably she had been in amongst something she shouldn’t have outside.

She’s definitely not off her food - that would certainly be a sign that something is very wrong! She has enjoyed some Christmas chicken and would have eaten more if I had let her. No diarrhoea either, or lethargy.

With our cat, this turned out to be pancreatitis. Best see a vet.

If one cat can't be trusted with food, I would look at getting micro-chip feeding bowls. You could feed them through the day as normal, and give vomity-cat access to dry through the chip feeder overnight.

One of mine is sick at night/in the early hours if we forget to fill up their biscuits before bed.

People with chip feeders - does it close if the correct cat walks away? The other cat can be a bit of a bully - if she finishes first we have to be on guard to make sure she doesn’t push the littler one out of the way to snaffle whatever she’s got left.

This was one of my darling cat's symptoms of kidney disease I'm afraid. I'd come down in the morning to pools of white liquid vomit, no food. I took her to the vets and a blood test revealed the kidney issue. I'd definitely take them to the vet.

Our dog was never off her food either (she’s never been off her food in her life - she’d still be eating at death’s door). The only symptom she had was nighttime vomiting and bouts of diarrhoea (which she had intermittently anyway because she was always eating things she shouldn’t).

I would definitely see a vet first to rule out anything other causes.

*any other

One of mine does this occasionally. But never when she actually had pancreatitis! She's always done it. So unlike tombs kidneys in her case. I think it's just her!

UPDATE

We had a full nights sleep (well, until 7 which is the usual cats jumping on us asking for breakfast time), no vomit whatsoever. We gave her a handful of cat biscuits at 10, and tried to distract heading-towards-chonkyness cat with a couple of biscuits at the same time.

We are away visiting family for a few days now so I’ll set up a feeder to open at 10 every night (and hope she gets to it first!) and ask our brilliant cat sitter to check for sick. If it carries on after the bank holiday I’ll take her to the vets.

Thanks everyone!