Today is National Hairball Awareness Day, so it is the duty of all cats to make their humans aware of hairballs. Did you know that humans can get hairballs?
According to Wikipedia’s entry about Hair Balls:
Although uncommon in humans, some hairballs have been reported, often in young girls as a result of trichotillomania and pica. In 2003, a 3-year old girl in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada had a grapefruit-sized hairball surgically removed from her stomach and in 2004, an 18-year old woman from McAdam, New Brunswick, Canada had a 5-lb hairball surgically removed from her lower intestine. Hairballs can be quite hazardous in humans, since hair cannot be digested or passed by the human gastrointestinal system, and (assuming it is identified) even vomiting may be ineffective at removing the hair mass. This can result in the general impairment of the digestive system.
Be sure to tell your human about all the ways that they can prevent hair balls, especially all the methods that work best for you! Here are some tips recommended by the Catnabbit! Cats:
1. Brush your human’s hair every day, or more frequently if they have long hair. This is the perfect time to pay them back for all those loving evenings of grooming with a fine-toothed wire brush.
2. Make your human take a laxative (like mineral oil, laxatone, or petroleum jelly for cats) if they get constipated and can’t pass their hairball.
3. Remind your human to eat lots of grass or catnip every day. This will help keep hairballs from getting stuck somewhere in your system. Humans really don’t like to eat grass, but you must insist that this is for their health and prevention of hairballs!
4. If your human has long hair, the only solution might be to get a haircut. Cats with hair only 1-2 inches long don’t get as many hairballs as cats with longer hair, so recommend that your human gets his hair cut to 1-2 inches length.