Purple the cat became seriously ill last year, and now the story behind his mystery illness has gone viral among concerned pet owners.

Reddit user u/PoisonWaffle3 posted in January about a strange illness that befell his beloved kitty Purple last September.

When the poor cat couldn't stop vomiting, his owner rushed him to the emergency vet for X-rays.

What they found in Purple's belly stopped them in their tracks.

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The scans showed that the cat had ingested a large amount of hair ties which had subsequently become tangled and lodged in his stomach.

According to the Reddit user, the vet recognized the hair ties immediately. "It sounds like they deal with this sort of thing very regularly," he told Newsweek.

Purple had surgery to remove the foreign objects on the same day, racking up a bill of $3,000 un unexpected fees.

"We are now a hair tie free house," his owner said.

Cats can often be "attracted to things that look like insects or worms," Dr. Preston Turano explained to Newsweek.

"Linear foreign bodies such as strings, hair ties, rubber bands, and shoelaces have long been some of the most common causes of gastrointestinal blockages in cats."

Such blockages can not only block the GI tract but also cause it to fold up on itself like an accordion, causing irreversible tissue death.

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The comments section of u/PoisonWaffle3's post is littered with corroborating accounts of this!

"Your poor baby! She must feel better without all that gunking her up! All ribbons are cut off or only supervised play now," one user wrote.

Another added that pet owners should be careful of "cut ribbons AND the plastic feathers off toys. They can choke on the feathers."

"Watch out for earplugs too." added a third. "They're bouncy and colorful and fun to chew."

User u/PoisonWaffle3 said that he shared his experience to "hopefully save a kitty." Have you cat-proofed your home against these common objects?