Pet Forum / Miscellaneous / Animal Health / June 2005

Hi,
My cat was just diagnosed with steatitis (yellow fat disease)
She stopped moving, stopped eating and had a fever.  Also, her white
cell level was very low.  An ultrasound showed the inflammation of the
fat.  We gave her antibiotics and vitamin E for a week.  The next blood

test came back completely normal.
The vets all felt a mass in her abdomen so they decided to do
exploratory surgery yesterday.  It turns out that the mass was an
accumulation of fat and that yellow fat is all over (around the kidney,

etc)  The surgeon cleaned up as much as she could but could not remove
all of it.  The vet called me before the end of surgery to let me know
that my cat definitely has steatitis and she asked me if I wanted them
to put her to sleep while she was under anesthesia.  She explained that

it's a rare disease these days, and since my cat never ate fish a day
in her life, it's even more bizarre since it's usually caused by a
vitamin E deficiency from eating tuna.
So the problem we're facing is that no vet at that clinic has had
experience with treating steatitis and even though they know what to
give her (antibitics, vitamin E), they don't know if it will help.  We
want to make the best decision for our beloved cat and since steatitis
is very painful, we don't want her to suffer.  But we also want to do
everything we can to try and treat it.
Does anyone have experience with steatitis?  Did your cat have it and
recover?  Did the treatment not work?

I would appreciate any feedback.  
Thank you
V