Vomiting food!

[Tilou]

Bob has reverted to vomiting up his wet food eaten at breakfast time. This was one of the reasons he was hospitalised last week.

Unfortunately I can't discuss this with the vet because she advocates a dry food diet and is not happy about our feeding Bob wet food.

The strange thing is it only occurs in the morning. He eats the same food during the day and in the evening and doesn't bring it back up.

Just wondering if anyone else has come across this?

 

[Rachel]

It's possible it's "scarf n barf". Does he eat really fast in the morning? Some cats vomit in the morning because they haven't eaten overnight and their stomach starts to put out some acid because they know it's food time...and when they eat that acid can make them throw up (that's not very science-y, but it's the best I can do! Kris might be able to explain it better).

If so, you can try a few things. You could give him a few treats about 20 min before breakfast. This would help soak up any acid in the stomach. You can also attempt raising the food bowl on something like a shoe box so that he's in a better position when eating..that helps sometimes. Also, you can try using a timed feeder to put some food out throughout the night. I want to say I remember you saying you used to do that, but I can't recall (I have a terrible memory!). If you do that you just want to make sure it's not available 2 hours before breakfast time.

 

[Tilou]

It's possible it's "scarf n barf". Does he eat really fast in the morning? Some cats vomit in the morning because they haven't eaten overnight and their stomach starts to put out some acid because they know it's food time...and when they eat that acid can make them throw up (that's not very science-y, but it's the best I can do! Kris might be able to explain it better).

If so, you can try a few things. You could give him a few treats about 20 min before breakfast. This would help soak up any acid in the stomach. You can also attempt raising the food bowl on something like a shoe box so that he's in a better position when eating..that helps sometimes. Also, you can try using a timed feeder to put some food out throughout the night. I want to say I remember you saying you used to do that, but I can't recall (I have a terrible memory!). If you do that you just want to make sure it's not available 2 hours before breakfast time.

I never thought of that! I do leave a modicum of food out when we go to bed but Bob tends to polish that off very quickly.

I will try the giving him a snack before his main breakfast.

Funnily enough he used to eat off a raised box when he was overweight, but now he's back at floor level so might try that again.

I do have a timed feeder, so can try that too!

Thanks for all the ideas

 

[Tilou]

Breakthrough!

Got a reading of 14 (252) at +5 today, having increased the dosage of insulin to a "fat" 2u for a couple of days and then raised it to 2.25 last night to counter a high of 37 yesterday (due to stupidly treating him with 5 grams of diabetic kibbles!), then back to 2u this morning (as couldn't get an AMPS reading).

Bob is looking great on it.

Obviously I anticipate it will rise up again, but it's a great start after only a week on Prozinc.