Is my cat ok?

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My cat has been throwing up a lot lately. She usually throws up when she eats food which has been out for too long, and I thought that's what was going on (my flatmate kept unwittingly giving her old food that I didn't realize he still had) and got rid of it a few days ago, replacing it with a brand new bag, but she still hasn't stopped. She's doing it at least once a day or so. She's hardly a kitten - maybe 10 years old? I'm not exactly sure, since she's my flatmate's cat and I've only lived here for a year. But she's not exactly old either, and she's still full of energy and wants to play and cuddle all the time. We don't have a lot of money to take her to a vet, so we can't do it unless we're sure there's something really wrong. I've had a lot of cats in my life but I've never had one with this problem. Does anyone have any idea what the problem might be? Does it sound serious enough that we should scrape together the money and take her to a vet?

Do you worm her regularly? Worms can cause throwing up.

As long as she is eating and drinking ok, and not losing weight, then I'd worm her first, if that doesn't work then take her to the vet. It could be lots of things.

Don't buy cheap wormer from the pet shop. I buy mine online or from the vet. Drontal or Panacur are good brands, I don't know if they are available where you are.

My cat started doing this when she was about 16 years old. She threw up once or twice a day after meals. She started losing weight. I took her to the vet, and they did some blood work. They said they thought something was wrong with her pancreas. They wanted to do more blood work and tests, but she went downhill very quickly. She quit eating or drinking water, and her kidneys shut down despite taking her to the emergency vet clinic and putting her on IV fluids for a couple of days. I had to put her to sleep because her lungs were shutting down, and she was suffering too much. The vet thinks that she probably had cancer.

I hope your kitty doesn't have a serious health problem like mine did, but if possible, I recommend saving up enough money to take her to the vet. In the meantime, you may want to switch her food to canned cat food or something with smaller kibble. A cat older than 7 years is considered a senior kitty. She may be having difficulty eating the regular size kibble and swallowing pieces that haven't been chomped on enough. I recommend that you don't switch her food too often though, because that can upset her stomach also.

We've never wormed her. How do cats get worms exactly? She doesn't go outside.

She's still eating and drinking plenty, has plenty of energy, and is not losing weight as far as I can tell, though she's not a big cat to begin with. I'll tell my flatmate to look for some pills to worm her (I would have no idea what they're called or where to get them in this country) and see if that does it.

She's very picky about food. Before I moved in, my flatmate was giving her a different brand of wet food every day, and no dry food at all. He said that if she had the same brand or flavor of food more than one day in a row, she would refuse to eat it. I didn't believe him, but then I saw it for myself and realized she's one strange little kitty. However, the wet food was expensive and it didn't seem healthy to keep changing her food like that, so I found a good dry food (Friskies "Indoor" cat food) and started giving her that. She resisted at first but when she realized it was that or nothing, she started eating it normally. She still refuses to eat food that's been in the bowl more than a day though, and I have to dump out the old food and give her new each day. I still give her some wet food once a week as a special treat ("Felix" brand, various flavors) and she scarfs it down like she hasn't eaten in days. It's true that she doesn't throw up after eating the wet food as far as I can tell, and looking at the vomit there are pretty large chunks of dry food in there. Maybe it's time to switch her over. It'd be more expensive, but certainly it's worth it if her food is making her sick... I just hope I can find a wet brand of indoor cat food. Before I started giving her her current food, she was always eating all the plants in the apartment. We don't have plants anymore (not possible in our basement flat) so I've got to make sure she gets her vitamins somewhere.

If she didn't start throwing up until you gave her the new dried food then that could be the reason. I don't know the brands you mention, we don't get them in the UK. But personally I wouldn't give just dried food to a cat of that age, just because their kidneys are prone to having issues. She is a senior cat and I think if you can find a senior wet food as well as dry then that would be ok. My cats have a mix of dry and wet food every day. They get fed twice a day with wet, and once a day with dry.

Cats get worms from hunting, among other reasons. So it's unlikely she has them. My cats are outdoors most of the time at this time of year.

We checked the poop, no worms. I started giving her the dry food about 9 months ago and she never had a problem. The throwing up has only been the last week or so. I'll try switching to wet for a while and see if it helps. Both of the food brands I mentioned are supposed to be good ones (both made by Purina I think). We won't give her Whiskas or anything like that which is known to have addictive chemicals and such in it. Ugh, it's gonna be expensive to switch her to wet... She better appreciate it!