kellyahern said:
Worf has a hyperthyroid condition. Does anyone have a cat with this?
They said they could:
a) do radio iodine treatment - which cures it, but costs over $1,000
b) surgery, remove the thyroid - but there are complications with an older cat and it seems no one does that surgery because they do the iodine thing
c) medication - two pills a day, but the medication might have complications with her blood, etc.
My cat Max has hyperthyroidism. He's on the medication and does pretty well. We do have to have regular blood tests to make sure the medication isn't causing other problems and is still controlling the hyperthyroidism, but he's done well with that too.
Max is terrible to pill and although I was able to give them to him in his food for the first year, he eventually got wise to that and had to be switched to a trans-dermal method to deliver the medication (ie, I get his medication compounded specially for him in a cream and rub it into a patch of skin. It works well for Max).
If you go the pill route check around various pharmacies for the best prices on the medication (it's usually Tapazole/methimazole) because the prices can vary a lot.
It's a treatable (and even curable) condition and your cat can live a long happy life.
My Loki is at the vet right now getting a whole battery of test run. He has horrible teeth and will be getting those worked on, and most likely out (they are
that bad
) early next week (I hope), and then the whole senior cat workup (we're thinking he's at least 13 because he was pretty old when he came four years ago) checking his thyroid and kidney functions, etc. Poor little guy is so scared -- he's already made one dive under the cages there and is now getting a tranq. so they can continue to check him out. He'll be so happy to get home later today!