Hyperthyroidism

[jaspercat2002]

My beautiful 16 year old girl was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism a couple of weeks ago :-( We seem to have caught it quite early and have started her on tablets but administering them is turning in to a bit of a trial!

Just wondered if anyone had experience of dealing with this, or had used the transdermic ear gel I've seen mentioned on several websites?

I know there is a food option too - has anyone tried this? Would be interested to hear what's worked for others.

We did the tablets for several months with our 12 YO cat, but the vet recommended an operation to remove teh overactive gland and that worked out very well. No more tablets and he put on weight beautifully.

As well as the op there is radioactive iodine treatment that is a permanent solution.
Tricks I have used with the tablets in
Cheesy wotsits
Chunks cheddar
Prawns
Primula cream cheese spread
Bits of sausage

I have investigated the transdermal gel for a client it is pretty expensive as it is a special formulation that is made up just for cats.

Mine is nearly 16 and diagnosed with hyperthyroid a few months ago. It's really difficult to give her tablets and would be near impossible to do it twice a day when I inevitably have to go away for a few days and a friend comes in to look after her. So we decided to go the food route.

If doing it with the food they absolutely cannot have any food ever other than the special food. I've never really given my cat food treats anyway so wasn't a big deal for us, just a bit sad that she can't have a bit of my fish if I'm eating some now. Plain chicken is very very low in iodiene though so she does get a little of that sometimes off my plate.

At first she would eat the dry food but hated the tinned stuff and hardly ate any, but after about a month I took her back to the vets to monitor thyroid levels and discovered that she had managed to put on weight anyway, so stuck with the special food only. Soon after that she decided she did like the tinned food after all and now eats it ok. Thyroid levels were still high but had improved.

Her appetite is less than it was before, but this is apparently due to improvement in her thyroid function and she is now able to get better nutrition from the food she does eat, hence her putting on weight while eating less than she used to. She's also a bit less manic due to thyroid improvement, which means she's burning off fewer calories. Went back to vet for monitoring another month later and she's back at her ideal weight, glossy fur, swearing heartily at the taxi driver and seems absolutely fine.

So now I'm back to worrying about her arthritis instead...

The dry food really isn't that expensive if you buy big sacks cos they last for ages, I get mine from my vets who have an online shop with 10% discount, so it's £40 for 5 kilos. We have not got anywhere near the bottom of a 5 kilo bag yet, I think it might be about 6 month's supply! The tins (1 portion per tin) are £35 for 24 tins. She has been on dry food plus one tin per day but I might stop bothering with the tins since they're more expensive and she likes the dry stuff better anyway.

Forgot to say, I was told there was an operation but it costs about 1.5k, and she'd need to be stabilised first anyway, i.e. we'd have to do the special food or the tablets for long enough to get thyroid levels completely under control before they could do the operation.

Having settled her on the food and got this slowly working, I'm inclined to just settle for that really rather than try to find £1,500 just so she can eat fish again. But I am not rich, she is 16, and I think her arthritis will affect her quality of life significantly soon. Things may be different for you.

£1.5 for the op??, with me it's more like £350.

Hmm, how do I find out more about the £350 treatment option?

This PDF seems to suggest that a huge cost is involved in caring for a radioactive cat for a few weeks after the op, which might be where the £1,500 price tag came from. I'm not sure my cat would be in good enough health (other than her thyroid) to have it done, and she would be insanely stressed by being away from me for 2 - 3 weeks

www.rvc.ac.uk/small-animal-referrals/Media/SmallAnimalReferrals/pdf/Hyperthyroid%20Cats%20-%20Owner%20Information%20Aug2014.pdf

Cats radioactive iodine and surgery are two totally different options both with risks and benefits.
Radioactive iodine is a very specialist procedure carrier out in referral centres requiring between 2 and 6 weeks hospitalisation. Hence the upwards of £1.5K pric ag.
Surgery is a procedure regularly carried out in regular veterinary practices an uncomplicated surgery in my practice requires one night hospitalisation, very occasionally a cat will require longer monitoring maybe three days and this would come in at about £650 (in my hands about 2%) of cats.

So to recap there are four options:
Life long medication
Life long special diet with no other food
Stabilise with meds then surgery
Stabilise with meds then radioactive treatment

Thank you all - that was all really helpful info and will give me some things to talk through with her vet at the next appointment.
I did manage to sneak in the tablets in cheese/chicken/catnip treats for a week or so but she has soon wised up and now spits the tablet back out, or completely ignores the treat.

She is due a blood test later this week to see how her kidney function is so will have to make some decisions after that as to whether she is up to surgery. I don't think we can carry on with the tablets much longer though as she is nervous wreck around us and it is really destroying her relationship with us :-( Good to hear that the food might be a workable option catsofa.

Thanks again for all the info - will let you know how we get on.

My now 18 year old cat was diagnosed with this a few months ago. I am giving her tablets, as the food option would be difficult with other cats in the house. She takes them squashed into a small piece of cheese.
So far she has needed several blood tests to get the dose right- which are far more traumatic than giving her the tablets. She is doing well and has stopped vomiting and put on a bit of the weight she had lost.

Mr Cory has this and I feed him his pill with a Dreamie in the morning. It often takes 4 or 5 Dreamies to get it down, but it works.

Mine's got an overactive thyroid. Initially I was giving his meds in his food, but now I have the tablet giving to a fine art.

1. Get tablets out.
2. Grab cat, sit down with cat's face toward me and his bottom in my lap.
3. Force mouth open by pressing on his cheeks where his top and bottom jaws meet.
4. Poke tablet as far down mouth as you can, then close the mouth.
5. Stroke his throat as this encourages swallowing.

He used to fight it but is now relatively relaxed about it and doesn't fight as much!

I've had lots of cats with this (not surprisingly as I have lots of cats anyway and a fair proportion of them are quite old). I always stabilise on meds for two weeks and then have the op to remove the thyroid. They've all recovered beautifully and gone on to be absolutely well, with no need for tablets.

I thought they'd still have to have thyroid tablets thecatneuterer? To replace the thyroid they can no longer produce naturally? Only that's the main reason I'm not keen on ot for ours....he's very thin due to the hypothyroid and I've always worried he's too thin for the anaesthetic and if he still has to take medication after, I've never seen the point.

Cats apparently have a pair of thyroid glands and usually it's only one that acts up. So no medication after the op.

Yes, Dustinthewind has it.

my 14 year old cats have it, they got very skinny and hyper and were hungry all the time. We started on felimazole tablets but it was just too much of a faff so switched to the food about two months ago and the cats have transformed - way happier, eat a lot less, gained weight, glossy fur, less frantic.
we use hills prescription y/d and buy it online.
they each eat one can of wet food daily plus dry food as a snack.

Oh ok- didnt know that. I assumed they were like humans ie remove the thyroid and put on thyroxine.

An op's never been discussed with us, just meds. I'm still not convinced its best for him and would prefer to manage it with just meds. I'm just worried about him under an anaesthetic given his low body weight.

One of my cats developed hyperthyroidism aged 16 - we tried felimazole at first but it was a complete nightmare giving him the tablets (he had always been reluctant to take tablets whole, however well-disguised, and the felimazole could not be crushed) and he then developed a serious side effect (his blood cells were badly affected by the felimazole). We then went for the op as he was otherwise pretty fit & well for his age. The vet was very reassuring about it being a common op in elderly cats although there was a slight increased anaesthetic risk due to the high blood pressure caused by the thyroid. I think the op cost about £300 and he recovered brilliantly. As PP have said he had only 1 lobe of the thyroid removed so did not need thyroxine replacement (although there was a risk of the remaining gland becoming overactive in the future). He survived another 2 years although sadly his high blood pressure either returned or had already done damage to his eyes so he ended up being blind for his final year. However his first year postop was very good, he was back to his old self, and so we were glad to have made the decision for surgery.

We didn't go for radioiodine because we thought he was too old to really get the benefit from it (had he been 10 or 11 we might have gone for it) and also the info we were given said that the cat would have to be euthanased if it became unwell during the period of quarantine, and we just did't want to take that risk even if it were very small. Also we thought he would cope very badly with being away from us & being in quarantine as he was quite a timid homeloving cat.

The special diet wasn't an option either as we had 1 other cat and there was no way we could have kept different types of food separate.

If another cat of mine developed hyperthyroidism I would probably make the decision to have the op again

Thanks for all the replies.

We have had to stop the tablets now as they started making her quite sick and so she had lost even more weight. We are going to try the food once her stomach has settled down again. I'm a bit worried she won't eat it as she is notoriously fussy but will just have to see.

I did ask again about the other options but at this stage we aren't sure if there is a masked kidney problem as her blood test results were a bit unclear, so will have to wait and see if we get her thyroid level down. Good to hear that the op is quite straightforward though as I think the stress if being kept in for a few weeks after the radioactive treatment would be a bit much for her.

Mine hated the wet food and complained very loudly at me for ages about it, but by the time I'd given her absolutely nothing but that and the dry for a week or two she completely got over it and now is fine again. So do stick with it if she doesn't eat it at first, she should also get less hungry once her thyroid levels start to improve. Good luck!

So she has been on the food for just over a week now and she is furious! She liked it ok at first but is now completely ignoring it and spending her whole time nagging for something else. I think I will give it another week as you suggest catsofa and then take her to be weighed again to check she hasn't lost too much more. She is eating a tiny bit of the dried but it doesn't seem like enough.
I wish they did it in smaller tins - it seems to dry up so quickly.

OP, you have my sympathies! My cat was diagnosed with the same 3 years ago, and at the start the medication (called vidalta) was a nightmare! It gave him a really, really bad tummy and he kept being sick. We took him back to the vet because we were so concerned and he advised us to hang in there. He was right - it did calm down after 2 months. It was difficult in the interim though - lots and lots of cleaning up of kitty puke and readministering pills. And the worry that the poor boy was getting a bit thin. BUT it did get better.

Getting pills down a cat can be such a trial! We found those cat treats called 'deli sticks' - you buy them in packs of 10 or so in the supermarket. The Tesco salmon ones are good because they are soft. You can cut about a 2cm chunk off the end, slice it open carefully with a sharp knife, and bury the pill inside and close it up again. My cat eats it quite happily. In fact, he actively looks forward to eating it each day.

Have also had success with small pieces of Dairylea with the pill hidden inside.

The medication worked wonders - once we were through that initial 2 months he was back to normal in no time and has had a whale of a time since. We did think about the operation/radiation, but it involves a lengthy stay for the cat outside the home (due to radiation regulations) and we didn't want to be apart from him for that long. He was 12 at the time of diagnosis, so that was a factor. I have heard that the ear medication isn't very well tested and that evidence for it is mixed, but I'm not a vet so not an expert on it.