Cat gagging before/during/after tube feed
Hi all, I just brought my cat home after a 5-day hospitalisation. He went through an enterotomy to remove a foreign body from his small intestine, and has suffered a number of complications after the surgery - ileus being the main one. He’s finally a little better and been discharged, but he’s still not eating so they sent him home with an e-tube. They’ve been using it at the hospital for the last couple of days and said he’s been tolerating the feeds. I just did my first feed at home and got really scared because just the act of me touching the tube to check and replace the dressing seemed to make him gag. During the car journey home, he was fidgeting a lot in his carrier and I could see he was moving the collar and the tube around, and I was simply trying to put it back in place (the dressing had ended up all the way on the other side of his neck). He then did a HUGE and scary gag/wretch at the start of the feed, so I paused and then resumed but a lot slower, and he was ok for the rest of it. I thought I was probably going too fast. After the feed, he continued to gag every now and then and looked uncomfortable, he was pacing around the room trying to find a spot and a position to sit in. It’s been around 1.5 hours now, he hasn’t thrown up and is currently sleeping but every now and then he will still gag a bit. What did I do wrong (apart from possibly going too fast)? It’s so scary seeing him like this…