randomly exploding cat

How can such a sweet little tabby generate so much chaos? One minute she looks like the creature on the left, calm and cuddly; and the next minute she looks like the disaster below, exploding in all directions, leaving destruction and mayhem in her wake.

Clearly she has some kind of problem, but she seems to feel fine 90% of the time. It's only when she's actually in the act of exploding that she seems uncomfortable. Otherwise she's begging for food, scratching up the blue chair (it's cheap, so I've abandoned it to the cats), snuggling on my lap, sitting in the bathroom sink waiting for a sip of water, or generally harassing me, per usual. I guess I'm glad she's not deteriorating rapidly; this is apparently a slow burn kind of thing. But the ambiguity is troubling. She'll be fine for days -- sometimes even weeks -- at a time, and then one evening I come home and all hell has broken loose, and I spend the next 30 minutes cleaning the floor, the rug, the blankets that I have covering my furniture, and of course the litter box. Sorry, if this is grossing you out, but it's grossing ME out more! I can no longer trust her enough to let her have free reign in the house like she has always had.

So I'm battening down the hatches, buying a pet gate and investing in a paper towel company, and sequestering her to the kitchen/dining area. There she has two beds, her own litter box, food/water, a big window, and room to bounce around. When I'm home and can supervise her, she can come out and be normal. But the rest of the time, she must be secured in a tiled area. The question is for how long? And will the various diet changes and injections help? And how can I ever go away on holiday again? No one wants to cat-sit an explosive cat!