hairball in cats

Most people believe that a cat with a hairball will vomit hair, but it is really not the case. Some hairballs of course, do get vomited. But, more often, the hairball is leisurely parked at the exit to the stomach when the cat decides to eat a meal. The act of eating stimulates the stomach to contract and push Kitty's big meal out into the intestines to be digested. The forceful waves of stomach contractions send the food toward the pyloris with the intent of emptying the stomach, but the pyloris is blocked by the hairball napping in the road.The food is generally undigested, and since the cat experiences no real nausea or cramping, the cat usually goes back to her dish to begin satisfying that mystifying, returning hunger. Meanwhile, the hairball is being tossed and churned by a stomach that has begun the mixing stage of the digestion process, and is either dislodged from the pyloris to float freely in the stomach, or is forced into the intestines to be digested and passed. So you see, hairballs can cause vomiting of hair, food, or even water soon after drinking. A normal cat can vomit in this matter an average of one time per week. Most cats with a hairball will vomit once or even twice in one week, then be fine for 2-3 weeks before another episode.
For a hairball remedy to work, they need to be used as a preventative measure, not as a treatment after vomiting is a problem. These products physically coat the hair ingested during routine grooming to prevent it from entangling and joining other hair already in the stomach, thus preventing the dreaded hairball. If the hairball is already present, a petroleum product will not be able to penetrate the densely packed hair in a hairball.
If your cat vomits more than an average of once weekly, see your veterinarian! Vomiting can be caused by a huge list of cats problems, some of the most common being the ingestion of a foreign body, infiltrative or inflammatory bowel disease, stomach tumors, kidney disease, diabetes, and thyroid disease.