That's pretty much exactly right......typically an overly fatty meal will start off pancreatitis. In veterinary medicine we tended to see a LOT of it after the holidays and everyone was feeding their pets holiday turkey and ham fat etc etc.....tending to set off pancreatitis.

While I lost my appetite for awhile and my energy both times it came on, I did not feel nauseated so that part was good. In animals the vomiting was usually the frist that people would notice and bring their dogs in. Fairly common in dogs, less so in cats.

In veterinary medicine they do indeed fast the patient if it's bad enough to rest the pancreas and induce as little activity from them (the pancreas) as possible. This is true in dogs, but not in cats......fasting a cat for too long (more than say two or three days) will make it sick in other ways (usually problems related to liver) Dogs are better built to handle fasting for a good while as long as they are on iv fluids and staying hydrated. Lola is right......the inflammation is literally the pancreas trying to digest itself and can be life threatening if it gets bad enough......some veterinarians (don't know about drs) consider emergency surgery a necessary option in a very bad case of pancreatitis to remove the necrotic sections where the pancreas has destoyed itself.

End of chatter