As anyone owned by a cat can tell you, very few of our feline friends enjoy a ride in the car. Veterinarians hear complaints all day long from cat-owning clients who dread the drive to and from their appointments.
Not only do kitties despise car rides, many also suffer from motion sickness. You'd be amazed at the number of cats who manage to throw up virtually every time they ride in their owner's car -- even if it's just a trip around the block.
Elizabethan Collars (E-Collars) Seem to Relieve Motion Sickness
Dr. Tom Morganti, a veterinarian with a practice in Avon, Connecticut, had a cat patient who vomited every time he rode in a vehicle. The cat's owners had long ago resigned themselves to the need to hose out the family car after taking their pet for a ride.
One day, the cat, by this time a senior citizen, underwent minor surgery that necessitated the placement of an Elizabethan collar (E-collar) around his neck so that he couldn't access the surgical site. For the first time in his life, the cat made the car trip home without throwing up. When his owners brought him back to Dr. Morganti for suture removal, the kitty was still wearing the collar, and he made the return trip without vomiting as well.
Morganti has since suggested E-collars as a treatment for car sickness for more than a dozen cats as well as a couple of dogs, and in each case so far, it has worked.
If you have a pet with motion sickness during car rides and want to try the E-collar trick, you can buy a collar online or at your local pet supply store. Make sure it's the lampshade type that reduces peripheral vision (there are many types of E-collars out there, the one that's effective for motion sickness is the old fashioned type).
I also recommend natural remedies such as flower essences to help calm a frightened, stressed-out cat, along with spritzing a calming feline pheromone spray in kitty's carrier about 15 minutes before she goes into it.
Dr. Karen Becker is a proactive and integrative wellness veterinarian. You can visit her site at: MercolaHealthyPets.com
Her goal is to help you create wellness in order to prevent illness in the lives of your pets. This proactive approach seeks to save you and your pet from unnecessary stress and suffering by identifying and removing health obstacles even before disease occurs. Unfortunately, most veterinarians in the United States are trained to be reactive. They wait for symptoms to occur, and often treat those symptoms without addressing the root cause.
By reading Dr. Becker's information, you'll learn how to make impactful, consistent lifestyle choices to improve your pet's quality of life.