What is Hairballs or Trichobezoars

Cats have such precocious personalities. They love to leave us presents like the dead lizards they have hunted down and killed.You might even be treated to a wonderful display of hacking and retching from your cat, with the wonderful result of a hairball for its efforts. Hairballs, or trichobezoars as the scientists and veterinarians like to call it, are literally balls of hair.

What These Hairballs  Are

Hairballs are developed when cats groom themselves and they accidentally swallow their own hair. As you well know, hair cannot be digested and if ever cats can do it, they would not be able to digest hair strands that easily. Swallowed hair can pose danger as it can block the passage of oxygen to the lungs and the passage of food through the stomach and the intestines.

In fact, cats who have hairballs will tend to cough severely because they find it hard to breathe while others will develop impactions in the intestines and the gastro-intestinal tract. These impactions is so serious that a surgery may be advised in order to remove the hairballs inside.

Your cat might choking or coughing before vomits hairballs. You need to watch for these symptoms when you think your cat has hairballs.

In less serious cases, the hairballs can just cause constipation, other problems with the stomach or other severe problems like Megacolon. and Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD)