Hyperthyroidism?

[alwaysthinkingofsleep]

My dear 18 old cat has been declining in health over the last few years. She only weights 3.2kg, begs for food constantly, steals food & drinks a lot of water each day.

There's clearly an underlying medical problem.

We had investigations 2 years ago & after £500 of tests there wasn't any obvious medical cause. The vet wanted to continue investigations into other possibilities but I declined. I'm not willing to start medical investigations again for several reasons. However I would like her to be as comfortable as possible for the remainder of her life.

It seems hyperthyroidism is the most likely cause. Has anyone treated this with diet? Any food based recommendations? I'm aware that this will not cure her issues, I just want her to be more comfortable & not anxious regarding the procurement of food.

TIA

As the diet is restricted iodine diet it is really important you have a confirmed diagnosis before you start the food. If the cat is not hyper thyroid and you use the food they can become hypothyroid.
Hyperthyroidism is very straight forward to diagnose and simple blood test is all that is required. If T4 has been checked recently and is normal the cat is highly unlikely to be hyperthyroid.

For got to say there is only one suitable food Hills Y/d which comes in wet and dry forms.

As lone cat said, of it is hyperthyroidism then a simple T4 blood test should pick it up - about £60 at our vets.
Our 14 year old was hyperthyroidism, and we needed to give her vidalta tablets once a day, with gradually lowering doses. (Though I think it would have been a long-term med for the rest of her life). We did find though that she went from being starving to having little appetite, so we really struggled to bring her weight back up, so it may be worth getting on top of it sooner rather than later.
Unfortunately she ended up with a kidney infection and other issues on top, and it all became too much for her.
However for most hyperthyroidism cats the condition is fairly easily managed, I think.

Our vet did tell us that there are more permanent solutions, but these usually aren't warranted.

T4 blood test and then depending on the levels there are several different medications as some cats react better to some than others. As far as I'm aware hyperthyroidism can't be treated by diet only but I'm not a vet!

It may take a while of dose tweaks (confirmed by blood tests) to get it right but hopefully then it should be a daily med then a blood test every few months to double check unless symptoms change.
Small chance you end up with a cat like mine who doesn't react in the expected way which adds difficulty and extra issues and expense but Iv got a weird cat!

Lots of cats though once the hyperthyroidism is controlled then show kidney disease because the hyperthyroidism symptoms cover the kidney symptoms. That could potentially be treated by diet.

If you search hyperthyroidism on here there will be lots of threads some quite long. as it is pretty common.

@Ginkypig it is still not very common, but hills y/ d is a safe treatment option for hyperthyroidism when fed exclusively. It has been around for nearly 10 years now.

lonecatwithkitten that's interesting thank you. Like I said I'm not a vet so I obviously only know what I know.

I thought that was alongside medication not as an alternative.

I suppose though it would depend on the age and health of the cat and how far out of control the levels are.

My old girl for example was very ill and without emergency admission to the vet hospital for a week and the medication would have died before a diet could have helped. Even now her thyroid is quite uncontrollable and really tiny changes can cause wild fluctuations.

Please do get her bloods checked, that way you can be sure. She will basically starve to death if she has it, as she just won't be able to take on enough calories. Thirst may be a sympton of hyperthyroidism but I'd also be wanting to blood test to rule out kidney disease. It can easily be treated by the vet.