What you can learn from this lesson

• The difference between vomiting and regurgitating
• How to regurgitation in a cat
• Reasons cats regurgitate
• How a veterinarian will treat a regurgitating cat

Ew! What did I just step in??

The stuff on the floor next to your cat could be vomit or it could be “regurgitant”. Vomit has been in the stomach and could be food, water, bile (the green colored stuff) or a combination of these.  Vomit is often changed from its original appearance due to the work of the acids in the stomach.  Regurgitant (the product of regurgitation) has not made it to the stomach. This undigested material usually looks like it was when it was eaten. Vomiting usually happens a while after eating, unlike regurgitating, which is almost instantaneous after swallowing. To vomit, cats (and humans) have to use their abdominal muscles and often involves retching sounds. Regurgitation doesn’t require work and is mostly silent.

Hairballs are vomited- watch Puss in Boots in Shrek to see a good example of vomiting!

Why do animals regurgitate?

Cats may regurgitate for a number of reasons and it is important to determine the cause so that it can be managed or treated. Some simple causes are eating too much, eating too fast, and drinking too much water. More concerning causes are problems with the esophagus, which is the path from their mouth to their stomach. With esophageal issues, cats could have some type of disease affecting their esophagus, the esophagus could have grown improperly since birth, they could have something wrong with the muscles helping move food down, or they can even have problems swallowing because of problems with their brain.

See if you can identify what is vomiting and what is regurgitation with this activity:

How is regurgitation treated?

The first thing the veterinarian will do is ask questions about what your cat does at home. When you find a pile of gross food on the floor, did you hear the cat make a retching or coughing noise or was it silent? Does the food look mostly like it did when you first fed it to the cat or is it more mushy and green/yellow looking? They will also ask how often the cat is doing this. If the cat is regurgitating, not vomiting, you would not hear anything and the food would still looks put together with whole pieces of food.

Next, the veterinarian will try to figure out why your cat is regurgitating its food. They might do x-rays on the cat to see if there is something blocking the food pathway. They can also use a special dye that shows up on the x-rays so they can see the path of the food better.

The arrows in the image above are pointing at the cat’s esophagus, which normally cannot be seen from an X-ray but can be seen with special dyes. 

If there is nothing blocking the food from going down to the stomach, your vet might ask you to feed your cat small meals more frequently or to use a mat that makes them eat more slowly. The vet may also ask that the cat be fed in a quiet space so it isn’t stressed while trying to eat.  Often, regurgitation in cats can be fixed by changing the cat’s feeding routine or by changing the environment to help the cat feel more relaxed.

Knowledge Check

Let’s see if you can tell the difference between vomit and regurgitation! Try to answer the following questions as best as you can!