One of the top reasons someone will rush their pet to a vet is vomiting. If a pet is vomiting multiple times in a short period of time we tend to be more concerned than if it’s something that happens once every few weeks. However, it’s important to do proper diagnostics and try to figure out the underlying source, because while many causes of vomiting are easy to handle, others can be life-threatening.
First we need to differentiate between vomiting and regurgitation, as each indicates significantly different types of disorders. Vomiting is an active process caused by contraction of the stomach and abdominal muscles. You will usually see the pet start to work up to the actual process, even if it’s rather quick, and will see obvious effort. Regurgitation is a passive process where the contents of the stomach or esophagus aren’t held down by muscles and simply slip out when the pet is in a position to allow gravity to take effect. Regurgitation normally involves undigested or only partially digested food and often happens shortly after eating or drinking. Since regurgitation happens so easily, there is a big risk of stomach contents getting down the trachea and into the lungs, causing pneumonia. Vomiting can happen at any time and has the most potential causes. It’s important to think about these differences before you take your pet to the veterinarian, as each will start us thinking along a different track.
On the simple end, vomiting can be from intestinal parasites or simply eating something that “disagrees” with them. I see pets every week who vomit for a few days and then get better, usually due to having eaten table scraps or something in the yard. Minor illnesses like these can be simply and inexpensively diagnosed and treated, sometimes even getting better without any treatment at all. In cats, the vomiting may merely be due to hairballs, which can be controlled with certain foods and over-the-counter medications.
More serious diseases include cancer, stomach ulcers, kidney failure, liver disease, or an object lodged in the stomach or intestinal tract. Diagnosing these problems will involve blood tests and often x-rays or ultrasound. Depending on the results of testing, the pet may need medical therapy or even surgery. Just in the last few weeks, I have had to remove part of a cloth chew toy from a dog’s intestines and a bundle of ribbon from a cat’s. Obstructions are life-threatening and the longer they are present the more potential damage they can do internally. The sooner we have the illness properly diagnosed, the better chance we have of helping the pet.
In the middle of these extremes are chronic disorders such as food allergies and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). These illnesses are often the conclusion of a “diagnosis by exclusion”, where we do tests to rule out other problems and when those are normal come to a different conclusion based on history. There are no easy, specific tests for disorders of this nature, though an intestinal biopsy may be needed to confirm IBD. Since these are usually life-long problems, we have to look at management rather than cure. Food allergies are normally fixed by placing the pet on specialized foods and being very careful about what kinds of treats they get. IBD often involves a mixture of hypoallergenic or easily digested foods combined with steroids as an anti-inflammatory.
Like virtually all diseases in this Common Symptoms series, we can’t make a diagnosis based on symptoms alone, or even an exam. Hopefully these posts help you understand why we need to do diagnostic testing, and how many very different things can cause the same outward signs. These various issues can be very complex and this series is only intended as a brief introduction to the possibilities, all guiding you to taking your pet to the vet.