Vomiting is a common clinical sign in cats, resulting from various diseases and disorders. They are the result of a defense mechanism or response of the body to a pathological process or a foreign substance consisting of abdominal contractions and expulsion of stomach and/or intestinal contents accompanied or not by bile. The appearance of this vomiting can make us suspect a specific problem. Brown vomiting would indicate that there is blood or partially digested content, so the problem should be found beyond the stomach of small felines.
If you want to know the main causes of brown vomiting in cats and what to do, continue reading this article.
Gastrointestinal bleeding
Brown vomiting of digested blood in cats may be due to bleeding at the level of the stomach or intestine, gastrointestinal bleeding, usually produced in hemorrhagic gastroenteritis. This disease is characterized by the occurrence of severe gastrointestinal mucosal damage that causes:
- Vomiting
- Bloody diarrhea
This loss of blood at the gastrointestinal level causes our cats to be weak as they lose red blood cells due to the loss of blood, resulting in:
biles by losing red blood cells due to blood loss, leading to anemia:
- Anemias
- Reduction of oxygen reaching the tissues
- Electrolyte alterations
- Hypoglycemia
- Dehydration
- Shock
The damage to the gastrointestinal mucosa is what produces the alteration of permeability and exudation of fluid from the blood vessels in addition to increasing the risk of dysbiosis or alteration of the usual flora of the intestine, which allows infections and worsening of the picture. One cause of this bleeding is internal parasitization by parasites such as hookworm nematodes, which attach themselves to the intestinal mucosa to feed and produce hemorrhages.
Treatment of gastrointestinal bleeding in cats
In case of gastrointestinal bleeding in cats, the first thing to do is to stabilize the cat by replacing its hydration, electrolyte imbalances and anemia through a correct fluid therapy, in addition to the specific treatment for the problem in question that is causing the gastrointestinal bleeding.
Regarding fluid therapy, generally Ringer Lactate is used but 20 mEq/l potassium chloride should be added in case of hypokalemia and colloids should be used when there is hypovolemia with a hematocrit (percentage of red blood cells of the total blood volume) lower than 25% to expand the blood volume.
In case dysbiosis has developed or to prevent its occurrence antibiotics should be added. If the gastrointestinal bleeding is not due to an infectious cause, antiemetics and gastric protectors can be added, and to control pain it is a good idea to use opioid analgesics.
If cats are able to eat but have anorexia they should be put on a feeding tube while in more severe cases where enteral nutrition is not indicated the cat should be fed parenterally with a central venous catheter using dextrose as fluid and adding amino acids, minerals, electrolytes, lipids and vitamins, although lipids should not be added together with dextrose because of their high risk of precipitation.
Hairballs
Most cats do not have hairball problems as they are designed to eliminate hairballs effectively. However, in some cats due to various diseases or circumstances they can form, causing digestive signs, gastritis and in the most severe cases, intestinal obstruction.
The main causes of hairballs in cats are:
- Problems at the digestive motility level: they cause them to form hairballs faster and cannot digest them as they should.
- Dermatological disorders: such as atopic dermatitis, parasites, allergies, ringworm or contact dermatitis.
- Psychogenic, painful or social causes: such as stress or compulsive disorders that increase grooming and therefore the ingestion of excess hair.
These hairballs accumulated in the stomach or intestine of our cats can produce brown vomiting when trying to expel the hair together with digested or partially digested food that gives them the brown color.
Other symptoms that hairballs can produce in cats include the following:
Loss of appetite and weight loss
Unproductive gagging
Regurgitations
Vomiting
Constipation
Diarrhea
Dehydration
Lethargy
Swelling
Treatment of hairballs in cats
If, once the hairball has been diagnosed and limited, it is considered that the cat can expel it, the process should be facilitated with the use of lubricant or laxative treatments, while in cases where this is not possible, a surgical operation should be performed to remove the hairball.
If the cat is considered to have some type of disorder or disease that is predisposing it to hairball formation, it should be specifically treated. The best way to prevent your cat from suffering from hairballs is to keep them properly hydrated, exercised, give them malt from time to time at a daily dose of 2-3 cm of paste and brush them frequently, especially in spring and autumn, to remove all the dead hair that they will ingest with the daily grooming.
Constipation
Constipation in cats occurs when the intestinal transit is altered by a prolonged retention of feces, which continues to dehydrate them until they form hard and painful masses to be evacuated. When constipation is chronic, it can produce a megacolon or severe dilatation of the colon that loses the ability to contract (hypomotility).
Cats with this type of problem have such an obstruction that food accumulates in their digestive tract and comes out through the mouth in the form of regurgitation or vomiting due to overfilling. For this reason your cat may vomit brown if it is severely constipated by expelling food debris that is usually brown if it is fed cat food as it should be. There are many causes that can produce this problem in the feline species, such as the following:
- Stress
- Fear
- Joint pain that makes defecation difficult
- Neuromuscular alteration
- Sacral-coxygeous trauma
- Colon stenosis
- Disautonomy
- Pelvic fractures
- Tumors of the area
- Obesity
- Chronic or severe dehydration
- Accidents
- Certain drugs
- Hypothyroidism
- Hypocalcemia
- Hyperparathyroidi
Treatment of constipation in cats
In the therapy of constipation in cats, you should remove obstructed feces, improve the motility of the colon, reduce the fecal bolus and hydrate the animal since dehydration is a frequent cause of constipation as well as manage the causes that have provoked it.
To improve hydration, increase the cat’s water intake with wet food, add water to dry food, use moving water bowls and offer cat soup or milk for adult cats.
In mild cases of constipation when the colon is not yet damaged, insoluble fibers called Pysillium can be given to increase the moisture content of the feces and the frequency of defecation. When this is not sufficient, laxatives such as lactulose or bisacodyl should be added orally or by enemas.
In the most severe cases, manual removal of stool may be attempted under general anesthesia with the help of an enema to push the stool through the abdominal wall and rectum to facilitate its removal. In the worst cases the damaged colon should be removed by a subtotal colectomy in which up to 95% of the colon can be removed.
Food hypersensitivity
Food hypersensitivity, also known as Adverse Food Reaction (AFR) is a reaction that the cat produces after ingestion of an allergen or several food allergens in question, often proteins such as chicken or turkey. This hypersensitivity leads to the development of digestive and cutaneous signs in cats; moreover, it is estimated that up to 15% of cats with dermatological signs, especially non-seasonal pruritus, have food hypersensitivity.
Gastrointestinal clinical signs may include:
- Diarrhea
- Brown vomiting of food contents.
- Lymphoplasmacytic colitis
- Inflammatory bowel disease
On the other hand, dermatological signs are facial and/or cervical pruritus, dorsal thorax, axillary or inguinal region, medial aspect of the thigh, base of the tail and lateral aspect of the shoulders and other dermatological signs are self-induced symmetrical alopecia, feline eosinophilic granuloma complex and miliary dermatitis.
Treatment of feline food hypersensitivity
Diagnosis and treatment consists of an elimination diet using a novel or hydrolyzed protein food to avoid the allergen that produces the adverse reaction to the food. The time needed to assess this is 8-12 weeks, after which the suspect food is reintroduced in order to confirm the allergy.
If confirmed, the cat should be prevented from ingesting food with this type of protein by feeding it with another type of animal protein or with specific feed with novel or hydrolyzed protein throughout the life of the small feline.
This article is merely informative, in lovemyow.com we do not have the power to prescribe veterinary treatments or make any kind of diagnosis. We invite you to take your cat to a veterinary center in case it presents any type of condition or discomfort.
