cat diarrhea / vomit

khuntiennang · December 2009

my husband and i adopted a kitten a few months ago, both of us are first time cat owner. she is now around 7 months. and today is the first time we encountered a cat diarrhea. i've been reading up about cat diarrhea online the whole morning, but thought i should get some advice from you all.

we didnt change her diet, we gave her the usual wet canned food, sometimes mixed in with a little dry food. i think she may have eaten a little piece of styrofoam (the packing supplies) that fell out from our new computer box. i saw her chewing on it yesterday noon, which she spat out, though not sure if any is swallowed. So Im not sure if that is the problem. Anyway, the styrofoam incident happened yesterday noon, then around 1 or 2 at night before i went to sleep, i saw her pooped without any problem (not watery).

Now, I think the diarrhea occurred last night when we were sleeping, this morning when we woke up, we found the diarrhea all over our hall on the way to her toilet (i guess she couldnt hold it in time). then this morning when i was cleaning the hall, she vomitted too, but didnt see anything abnormal on the vomit besides what looked like her food (no styrofoam, and this is the first time she vomitted a chunk of her food like that too). then just about half an hour ago, she pooped again, without making a mess this time, still a little watery, but not as watery as this morning.

other than that, her behavior is the same, just as playful and all, doesnt look like a sick kitten at all.

should I be concerned? from what i've read online, it sounds like it is recommended to stop giving her food for several hours. should i do that? or should i bring her to the vet? what should i do?

bohuma · December 2009

Vomiting might be hairballs, but not diarrhea. I assume she's up on all her shots, but if not that's a possibility. She may also have eaten a sick mouse, or roach. Do you have house plants? Cats will eat house plants which can certainly cause vomiting and loose stools. You need to be very careful which house plants you keep as many are poisonous to cats including lillies and poinsettia. The one time one of my cats had a litter box accident I attributed it to using clumping litter too soon - some young cats have problems if they ingest clumping litter when they're grooming. I reverted to Yesterdays News and she was fine. My cats are now eight years old and are fine with Scoop Away clumping litter.

If she were my cat I would take her to the vet. If she's got both vomiting and diarrhea, she can get dangerously dehydrated very quickly.I don't take my cats to the vet for vomit if I can identify a cause (i.e. eating the houseplants or gorging food), but anything else I'd rather be safe than sorry.

laura b · December 2009

Take her to the vet. Because they are smaller, kittens can deteriorate much more quickly than adult cats. It could be any number of things, such as type of food, or worms (which is easily treated).

kevin_on_putnam · December 2009

If the vomiting and diarrhea persists, yes, I would take her to the vet. But cats throw up and have loose poop more then you might expect. We had a cat that would throw up more than she ate, and she lived 12 years. I would wait at least a day until I hauled her off to the vet.

opossumqueen · December 2009

I agree with Kevin.

And if you're worried about dehydration, do some google searches but I think you can give a kitten some of the hydrating drinks for human babies (pedialyte or something like that) that most stores carry.

Our pets aren't too different from us on this kind of thing. A little unhealthy poop every now and then probably isn't cause for a doctors visit but for some food that is gentle on the stomach.

I am a dog person and I feed mine some variation of the bland diet (rice, chicken sans skin/fat, oats, and sweet potatoes cooked together) when he's sick--easy on his system and I serve is with lots of water to rehydrate him. I would guess there is something similar for cats.

khuntiennang · December 2009

thanks everyone. she just got spayed and her full check up / shots a few months ago. we do have some houseplants that sometimes she attacks, but nothing caused any problem all these while. and dont think it's litter problem either since she doesnt use litter box anymore after i trained her to use human toilet, which she's been using for well over a month now. i guess it might be some foreign object / styrofoam that she swallowed after all.

i came home from work today, and my apt is intact. she hasnt pooped yet since the last round this morning, so hopefully she is done with her diarrhea. she has been her normal self the entire time.

thanks for the input guys.

cat diarrhea / vomit

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