P- Pancreatitis

Encyclopedia of Feline Veterinary Medical Information

Pancreatitis

Pancreatitis is hard to definitively diagnose in cats. Therefore, it is not as well described as pancreatitis in dogs. Acute pancreatitis seems to be rare in cats but pancreatitis does seem to occur chronically in cats, probably much more often than we realize.

Pancreatitis in cats is signaled by a reluctance to eat, vomiting, jaundice and weight loss. There is an association between feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) and chronic pancreatitis in cats so an effort to discern if this is a problem may be a good idea. Toxoplasmosis has also been implicated as a possible contributing factor in chronic pancreatitis in cats so testing for this may also be worthwhile, especially since it is more treatable than FIP.

During the acute illness it can be beneficial to use pain relieving medications. Pancreatitis is pretty painful in dogs and they seem to do much better with pain relief. It is likely the same is true in cats. The use of Fentanyl (Rx) patches has made chronic pain relief easier to accomplish in cats. If there are signs of dehydration or lethargy it is probably beneficial to use intravenous or subcutaneous fluid therapy (there is some indication that IV fluids are better in these types of illnesses). If the pancreatitis is causing a cat not to eat it may be necessary to use parenteral feeding techniques such as a feeding tube surgically implanted into the intestines after the portion which the pancreas empties into.

This is a tough condition to deal with. Low fat diets are supposed to be helpful for long-term control. If your cat will accept a lower fat diet this would be a good thing to consider.

Back

Last edited 01/13/08

vetinfo | vetinfo4cats | vetinfo4dogs | Canine Encyclopedia | Feline Encyclopedia | purpose
| Links |Dr Mike's Blog

The entire content of the vetinfo.com, vetinfo4dogs.com and vetinfo4cats.com website is and has been authored by Dr Michael Richards who is a veterinarian. Except for index type pages and comments interspersed though the site written by Michal Justis, who isn't ...we pretty much marked the difference.

Please do not use our site to attempt to diagnose or treat your pet. Your veterinarian is the best source of health advice for an individual pet. Please do use our site to become better informed about the medical problems your pet may have. We will do our best to ensure that information presented is accurate and up-to-date. The most current information will be at the top of each page. Remember that veterinarians often disagree about the best treatments for pets. There are often several perfectly acceptable ways to treat the same condition. Just ask a lot of questions!

Comments or information about our website, feedback, art info, broken links,
spelling or other errors or help finding things on the site or anything else-

e-mail
Michal Justis

E-mail for www. vetinfo.com is answered by Michal Justis, who is not a veterinarian
(but is a Lady).
Please remember that if you want a reply, make sure your e-mail return address is correct and if you have e-mail spam blocking,
that you have set it to receive e-mail from vetinfo.
Please do not send e-mail attachments. We are unable to open them due to security risks.

We use return email addresses to answer the mail we receive and for no other purpose. We do not share these addresses with outside parties for any reason.

Please note: The information on our site is for everyone to read.
Please use it as often as you like.

Please use the search engines or one of the indexes to
access the information you need on our website.

All original artwork as well as text on our vetinfo websites is copyrighted to Tiercom©1996-2008