I would agree. Also, I hope that this veterinarian realizes that species
do cough up stuff naturally, e.g., owls cough up the indigestible bits
of the animals they eat.

Hodge had some fur in his stool the past couple of weeks and then
coughed up a couple of large hairballs. He didn't lose weight or show
any symptoms. It could in some cases be a sign of IBD, but I doubt that
can be said so sweepingly.

It pretty well fits my cat history. I only had one cat that really
developed hairball upchucking, and he was eventually diagnosed with
IBD. If I had known that hairballs were not normal for cats then I
would have done something sooner, but he was one of my first two cats.

A few hairballs would seem normal but it a cat is regularly leaving
presents then I think that perhaps the cat should be seriously checked
out. On a related note, this next article talks about a way to treat
Crohn's Disease (a form of IBD), at least in humans:

http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-hscroh0316,0,3403142.story

There's a lot of IBD in my family so I take notice of articles on the
subject. In fact, when Nico (my deceased IBD cat) was first diagnosed
it just seemed like he was a full member of the family. By the time he
was diagnosed it was already  becoming lymphoma.

Seems to me that the simple way to test something like this is just to
give the antibiotics and see who gets better, rather than having a
debate. Having to give three different antibiotics (likely in
different doses at varying times of the day) is not something that I'd
like to try with a cat however.

I think all cats will have hairballs.  I feed my cats a homemade raw
diet and they might have 1 or 2 hairballs a year which is rare.  I
think most cats probably have more hairballs.  But if a cat is
constantly horking up hairballs, perhaps they do have IBD.  In that
case, I guess it would probably be a good idea to have the cat checked
out.

I may be lucky but Tiger has never had a hairball.  He is long haired
(Maine coon?), weighs 23 1/2 pounds and is almost seven years old.  He
eats Wellness canned plus a little bit of dry as a treat.  My
shorthaired female (Amber) does cough up a hairball once in a while.

                 ---MIKE---