On and off dribbling

[Fellmermaid]

Hi All,

I am looking for advice. I currently have an indoor (since a kitten) cat who is 18 months old. Our vet has stated that she is a healthy cat but over the last 6 months she has suffered from sporadic severe dribbling.

The first two times she stopped eating as much, lethargic and unsociable. When taken to the vets they checked her teeth, temperature and weight. They advised me that they could not find anything wrong with her except the dribbling which indicated nausea and they have given her an anti sickness injection. Both times this stopped the dribbling within 24 hours and she was back to her normal self. She has always been slightly dribbly when purring.

She has started dribbling again and not herself but it is severe to the point that her paws and beds are damp and she is hiding away. She is not normally sick when this happens. Previously we changed her food as we thought it could be too rich leading to the nausea which seemed to keep the dribbling at bay for a significantly longer amount of time this time.

Should I be asking the vet to investigate this further and run further tests? Could this be a sensitive stomach to the food we are giving her? I am so worried about her but I seem to get told by the vets to go with the anti sickness injection if it works but surely this cannot be the long term answer?

[Mollycat]

I'm with you on "this can't be a long term answer" and I've said this myself so many times. I'd want to know why an 18 month old cat is nauseous to that extent too, specially once obvious things have been ruled out like bad teeth. Although as a symptom on its own it's very vague, nausea can point to lots of issues and many of them can be easy to manage though some can be a bit more serious, and at her age I would certainly want to take a closer look.

It may not be easy to track down the cause, I think it sounds unlikely to be an issue with the food you're giving her as such though because that would normally cause vomiting or diarrhoea or both, rather than a sicky feeling.