Kittens are so playful and can be so mischievous. One thing having a kitten in the house does is to improve your housekeeping skills. It seems that a kitten will constantly get into anything that you may leave out in their reach. Unfortunately, for most kittens, their "reach" is from floor to ceiling, inside every drawer or cupboard, and the top of every surface. And when they are getting into something, they are probably eating it!

Taurus is a happy 6 month old kitten who loves his owner's jewelry. She started putting her necklaces and hair bands higher trying to make them less accessible to Taurus. When he started vomiting one weekend, his worried owner gave him a dose of Pepto Bismol. The active ingredient in Pepto is bismuth subsalicylate and it can help with mild cases of stomach upset or diarrhea. Because this is an aspirin type of compound only one or two small doses can be used in cats. Cats are unable to properly metabolize aspirin so it should be used in them cautiously.
So Taurus took his Pepto like a good boy, but did continue to throw up through the weekend. He was vomiting yellow bile and then, a clue! When his owner identified a candy wrapper in a pile of vomit on Sunday night, she knew he needed to be checked out.

He came in to see Dr. Sue Kitchel then next day. She examined the young healthy cat and with a high suspicion of a gastric foreign body, she obtained some x-rays of his abdomen.

What could they be and are they the cause for his intractable vomiting? The best way to find out would be to take a peek into his stomach and be prepared to remove these mystery objects if necessary.

An endoscope is a telescope specially made for looking inside the body. A flexible endoscope is appropriate to go down the esophagus and into the stomach and small intestine. This is a very useful fiberoptic tool hooked up to a video screen with a port for graspers and biopsy instruments. Rigid endoscopes are used to look in the nose, throat, urethra, lungs and abdomen. Dr. Kitchel decided that it would be best for Taurus if a foreign body was in his stomach to attempt to remove it with the endoscope rather than him having to have his stomach surgically opened.

Taurus was anesthetized and prepared for the procedure. The endoscope was passed into his throat, down his esophagus and into his stomach. With each turn of the light on the end of the scope all eyes were peeled for the objects appearing in his x-ray. To the observers (doctors, assistants, technicians) gathered around the screen this appeared as a wild ride through a video game of cat intestines!

Then, there they were; coils of elastic hair bands sitting in the body of his stomach. They were grasped with the instrument on the endoscope and pulled out of his stomach, up his esophagus and out his mouth. It took Dr. Kitchel several passes to remove all the bands and a final look revealed a normal stomach undamaged by the hair bands or the severe vomiting they had caused.

Taurus recovered beautifully and was ready to eat as soon as he awoke. His owner was thrilled with the procedure and had a baggie full of some very smelly hair ties as a souvenier!