My first inclination is to think he is suffering from hairballs. Pumpkin is my first choice for treatment of hairballs-1 or 2 spoons in some canned food - but not pumpkin pie filling. Pumpkin usually works best if you use it on a continual basis, several times a week permanently. With that being said....
Vomiting is a frustrating problem in cats because cats seem to vomit more easily than most other species. There are many cats who vomit fairly frequently who have no other signs of illness, such as weight loss, dehydration, inappetance or diarrhea. Trying to figure out what is causing it can be difficult and expensive. In cats who are otherwise pretty normal, it is hard to decide whether to make this effort.
The most common causes of vomiting in cats are probably inflammatory bowel disease, cholangiohepatitis, pancreatitis, cancer, kidney disease, hyperthyroidism and heartworms. There are many other causes, including parasites, mechanical obstructions (hiatal hernias, esophageal strictures, etc) and infectious diseases.
Eating too fast is probably not a common cause of vomiting in cats but there are some who have this problem for no other reason than over-enthusiastic eating.
At this point, you have to decide whether or not this is a problem that requires a diagnosis and treatment.
I personally think it is OK to try to treat this sort of problem without a diagnosis, as long as the cat doesn't have symptoms like weight loss or lethargy and as long as the treatment attempts involve things recognized to be safe.
Several cats with vomiting problems respond well
to Hairball Formula foods, so trying one of them is a
reasonable thing to do. Some cats respond very well to feeding smaller amounts of food more frequently also. There are metered feeding stations that deliver small amounts of food throughout the day if you want to take a high tech approach to this problem. A lower tech approach is to put the food into a container that it is hard for the cat to extract it from and let him work at until he gets all the food. I haven't
really seen this as a recommendation for this problem but I did read where an owner used a tall thin food container that takes the cat a long time to empty, which helped his cat. Another possibly helpful approach is to use a fatty acid supplement like 3V capsules which sometimes produce enough anti-inflammatory effect to help with chronic vomiting. Finally, I think it is reasonable to try a medication for esophageal or gastric inflammation, like Pepcid AC or Zantac to see if they will help. Enough cats with apparent "gluttony" problems seem to respond to one or another of these treatments to make
me think that this problem shouldn't be automatically considered to be behavioral in nature. Your vet may have additional "simple" approaches to this problem which have worked for him or her, too.
If you try these approaches and they don't work well for your cat the next stage in figuring out what to do is to consider X-rays to rule out obstructions, a general blood chemistry panel, urinalysis and complete blood cell count to rule out other systemic illnesses and for cats over five years of age, a test for the serum thyroxine (thyroid hormone) level would also be a good baseline test. It may be necessary to do more invasive testing, such as an endoscopic examination of the gastrointestinal tract, as well.
There is one disadvantage to trying a couple of treatment options prior to making an effort to diagnose an underlying cause. In some cats, early recognition and treatment of inflammatory bowel disease, chronic cholangiohepatitis or a systemic illness can make it possible to treat these conditions more effectively. If treated early, it is sometimes possible to get inflammatory bowel disease to clear up and stay away, so there is some reason to consider pursuing a diagnosis and treatment even when the vomiting is only an intermittent problem.
Please let me know if any of the above suggestions help.
__________________
Please Press ACCEPT if my answer helped solve your problem.
Lori McLaughlin
Your veterinarian should ALWAYS be consulted first and foremost when your pet's welfare is at stake.
