Another hairball question

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arozeboom

arozeboom

Member Since 2011
Again, our civvie Midgie, is acting like she needs to barf up a hairball. So far its been unproductive.
She's always thrown them up pretty regularly but hasn't since the surgery on her lung about a month ago.

She's still eating, playing and pooping completely normally. You would never know she had a piece of her lung removed recently. She used to love Petromalt and Laxatone but now wants nothing to do with it. I'm going to try one more flavor tonight to see if she'll eat it.

So these are my questions: if she is still pooping regularly (she does every day) should there be concern that she could develop a blockage? Basically, will a hairball just hang out in the stomach while food passes thru it normally? Would a remedy like petromalt, laxatone, olive oil, etc actually help to move it along, one direction or the other?

She gets incredibly stressed by riding in the car so I'd like to avoid a visit to the vet unless necessary. If she was acting like she didn't feel well, we could be there in a heartbeat. She acts like she's feeling great, though, so I hesitate to put her through the stress just to have them tell me they have no idea what's up.

Thanks!
 
If the unproductive coughing persists, you might want to get that checked out by your vet. I know from personal experience that the unproductive coughing can be an indication of something other than hairballs. My civie cat Felicity kept getting what I thought was hairballs -- but I never found any around the house. The vet originally diagnosed her with asthma, but then we later discovered she had dilated cardiomyopathy. So if the coughing persists, you might want to get that checked out (to rule out anything other than hairballs). On my diabetic cat Ninja, providing cat grass for her to chew on helped with the hairballs. She loves to chew on cat grass (I get it at PetSmart, but you can also grow your own). Also I read that switching from dry food to wet food can help enormously (fewer hairballs).
:)
 
I wouldn't classify it as "coughing" exactly. Its more like wretching, than coughing and its the way she's always gotten them up.
 
Yes, the asthma, cardiomyopathy and hairball coughing all look similar. There are videos on youtube (search for "feline asthma") where you can see a typical asthma attack and compare it to what you are seeing. But if your cat has a history of hairballs, that is probably what it is. Try the cat grass (or wet food if you are feeding dry) as those might help.
 
She just have a lobe of her lung removed a month ago. They did x-rays and a CT scan first so I'm pretty confident its not cardiomyopathy. Unfortunately I've had cats with both cardiomyopathy and asthma (2 different ones) so I'm a little familiar with how those manifest.

My gut is saying hairball (anti-jinx...my gut has been really dang accurate when it comes to my girls).
 
Understood. I didn't realize you had experience with asthma and cardiomyopathy. Unfortunately for my poor Felicity, I did not have any experience with either and kept treating her with Petromalt (which she loved) but which didn't help her... and by the time she was diagnosed, it was pretty advanced and I ended up losing her shortly thereafter (still breaks my heart to think about it). She is my angel now; but anytime I hear of folks dealing with unproductive hairballs, I always chime in because I wish someone had mentioned those possibilities to me early on. Maybe I could have kept her a little longer.

But in your case with your level of experience, I am sure you are right that it is a hairball issue... so please disregard my earlier post.

:)
 
Here's a new suggestion.
And it came from my vet so take it with a grain of salt :razz:

put about 1/2 inch on your finger of petromalt or similar and put it in the mouth using the palate to kind of rub it off your finger and into the mouth.
There are many cats who don't want to eat it voluntarily.

They really have no choice but to eat it then.
And It's over quickly. You do it every day or every other day depending on how much they lick themselves.

I've had to do it with my cat as she goes thru phases of liking it and not liking it.


Hairballs scare me.
Back when I was an undergraduate in college, I had to send my long haired cat to my grandmother.
Stupidly, I forgot about the hairball issue and never told my grandmother to give her hairball remedies. My grandmother
didn't even know it was necessary.

After a year or two of living with her, one morning my grandmother woke up and found her dead on the floor with
a hairball half out of her mouth. She had gagged in the night on a hairball ( and she was dry fed) and no one heard her
in the night.
She was such a wonderful girl . I'm sorry she died that way. I could have prevented it but I just didn't think.....
 
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