Okay, I apologize for being long winded but bear with me.

Last October, my 10 year old cat Chester start seeming like he had too much saliva in his mouth… Then he started pawing at the side of his mouth… Then started retching (it comes from his throat NOT from his stomach, it is not a gag, video of another cat doing the same thing below)… Then he lost his little voice he did it so much. We took him into a vet and got the B team we did not trust since it was a last minute appointment, they said it was asthma and gave him steroids. It went away for a week then came back.

We brought him to our regular vet and they thought since we just adopted a kitten (who has no symptoms of this), it might be something bacteria based so we put him on an antibiotic. It went away for a week or two, during which time we moved but… It came back. We take him to a new vet (who is fantastic) who thinks it’s bacteria causing something in his throat because when they push inward on his glands, he does the retch. So we try a new, longer term antibiotic. It goes away… And comes back after a week or two.

Our new vet also works with the biggest vet college in the country (Canada) so they sent our case off to them for their thoughts. They said "From the information you provided and response to antibiotics, I suspect the issue is oropharyngeal (back part of the mouth/tonsils/upper throat area). Diagnostically dental rads, dental cleaning and thorough oral exam under anesthesia would be a good idea. I’m not sure if endoscopy would be helpful or not, although if the oral cavity is normal and dental disease is not too severe, evaluation for esophageal disease (GERD, esophagitis, mass) would be reasonable.
The only additional diagnostic test that might be helpful in this case would be a head/neck CT to evaluate the nasal cavity and extra-oral structures for anything that could be contributing. As a last resort, if no abnormalities are found, then a swallow study to assess oroesophageal motility could be considered, but it doesn’t sound like dysphagia is a part of the clinical signs."

They recommended a CT scan but that’s 4k just for the scan and we don’t really have the money to drop on it.

We take him back for said teeth cleaning that he needs anyways and we put him on antibiotics again before he get his teeth cleaned. They come back saying his teeth are great, nothing needs to be pulled, they’re just dirty so they clean them (which is great). While he’s under, they check his throat and see nothing (not surprising because whatever this is, antibiotics makes it go away and he was on them before the teeth cleaning).

The vet has had a lot of success with probiotics so we do another round of antibiotics then start on the probiotics. This kinda works, in the sense that instead of taking a week to come back, it now takes a month to come back.

And that brings us to now, it’s come back again, like clockwork, every monthish while on probiotics. He’s been off antibiotics for 5 weeks at this point, on probiotics everyday.

And we are at an absolute loss as to what this is. If anyone has an answer, I would be eternally grateful!

For a visual, this video is EXACTLY what it looks like - https://www.reddit.com/r/CATHELP/comments/16hcno7/cat/_gagging/_and/_pawing/_at/_his/_face/_lethargic/ - I’ve showed the post and comments to all the vets I’ve been to as well.