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Back in late 2005, when my husband (then my boyfriend) moved in with me, my cat, Cleo, almost died.  Hubby brought a dog with him, and Cleo didn't take to the new addition very well -- she was so scared and upset that she stopped eating, and in an overweight cat (as I discovered) that can have disastrous effects.

When I realized Cleo not only wasn't eating, but also was dry heaving when we tried to encourage her to eat, I took her into the vet.  It turned out she had feline hepatic lipidosis, or fatty liver disease, an awful disease where the cat's liver gets overloaded with fat and shuts down, usually because the cat has stopped eating for whatever reason.  This could be because of situational reasons -- like in my experience, because of the addition of a new pet -- or because the cat is ill with something else, and not feeling well has caused him or her to stop eating.  Whatever the reason, it usually only turns into this disease in overweight cats -- when their bodies try to process their fat stores as energy, their livers get bogged down with the fat and stop working.

The good news is that, for many cats, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  It usually requires force-feeding for weeks or months -- whether by syringe or by a surgically implanted tube -- but the liver can be caused to start working properly again as the excess fat clears out.  I force-fed Cleo for four weeks until she started eating on her own again.

I started thinking about this again because I am writing an article on the disease, and therefore had to interview a couple of vets about it.  (I knew a lot about the disease already, but my editor wanted to have a few expert sources to give the article more weight.)  I have helped a lot of cat owners over the years with my website about my experiences with Cleo's fatty liver disease, and I am hoping that this article will help even more.  It's a difficult disease to get through, but it does not have to be fatal if you know how to treat it!