Cats with fatty liver disease: Tinkerbell's story

This post is part of a series about actual cats with fatty liver disease, or feline hepatic lipidosis. If you would like your cat's story to be featured on my blog, please contact me.

I first heard about Tinkerbell back in mid-November, when her "mom," Pam, commented here with a link to her own blog, My Tinkerbell.

Tinkerbell had been diagnosed with fatty liver disease at the end of October, and spent nine days in the hospital. When Pam brought her home, she was pretty much on her own, because the vet was so far away and wasn't that great anyway. So Pam felt pretty alone and scared — which, in my own experience and judging by what I hear from others who contact me via this blog, is how pretty much everyone feels when their cat is diagnosed with feline hepatic lipidosis.

I think it's important to note, however, that despite how overwhelmed Pam felt, she was actually doing everything right. You can see if you read her blog post and the comments below it that she had a good handle on Tink's care, despite her worries. I mention this because I think it happens frequently. Having your cat sick with fatty liver syndrome is overwhelming, and recovery can take some time. However, if you don't already know from experience how curable the condition is, you can worry endlessly about whether you are actually doing any good.

As a final testament to how curable fatty liver disease actually is, check out this comment: Tink had pancreatitis. As Pam notes, most "authorities" say that if a cat has both pancreatitis and fatty liver disease, they won't survive. Yet Tink did — Pam stopped force feeding her on November 26th, just in time for Thanksgiving!

Tips from Spot's Stew

Remember in my last post, when I talked about how much I love my cat's new dry food?

Well, I was poking around the Spot's Stew website, when I came across this blog post:

Holiday Dinners Make Perfect Pet Fare

The post tells you what exactly you can feed your cat at the dinner table. People who don't feed their cats people food will probably be horrified at the idea, but there are also people who cook for their cats on a regular basis, to make sure their pets don't get any of the crap many cat food manufacturers put into their food.

Even though Thanksgiving is over, frankly I think it's always a good time to give your cat wholesome good foods!

Dry cat food to swear by

In a blog post in October, I mentioned I was changing my cats' food after deciding that dry cat food was not good for Cleo.

Well, Cleo and Prince have now been on Spot's Stew dry cat food for over a month, and I love it — despite the cost being a little higher!

Cleo's fur is just as healthy now as it was on wet cat food, and hasn't gotten greasy as well — which I suspect might be because Spot's Stew doesn't spray their food with grease. Prince, who is a pickier eater, was a bit reluctant at first to eat the new food (probably doesn't taste as good as the dry food with the nasty grease). However after a week or so he stopped complaining about it, and now seems just as happy with the new food.

One thing I've noticed is that since I started feeding them Spot's Stew, neither cat has gotten any mats in their fur. I think the hairballs and vomiting has even become less frequent.

If you are anxious about your cat getting a lot of spoiled food and/or toxins in their cat food, I highly recommend Spot's Stew. It's a little more expensive, but it's worth every penny!