Hyperthyroid Cat

[Guest guest]

I hope this is ok to post here since it IS about thyroid

disease...just in cats.

My cat (12 years old) is hyperthyroid and has been for a few

years. In the last year or so, he's lost A LOT of weight. He eats so

much and he's currently maintaining at about 8 lbs. But he used to be

12 lbs (he's a fairly larger than normal cat so 12 lbs was pretty

ideal for him) so that's a lot of weight for him to lose.

We test his T4 levels fairly often (3 or 4 times a year when I can

afford it) and when they were " in range " but he was still vomiting a

lot and just acting strangely, my vet consulted with an internist or

some such who said we should get his numbers .5 or below. They were

somewhere around 2 at that time I believe. So that's what we did.

Vomiting stopped and for the most part he seems happy and doesn't look

sick, at least his eyes are bright. Exhibiting normal behavior more

or less (he's become a crier though - big time).

His main problems now though is his weight. He's still extremely thin

and his appettite is killing me cost wise. He eats 4-5 times a day at

least (and that's with me working 8 hours every day - if I'm home on

the weekends all day, he wants to eat every 2 hours). He acts like

he's starving to death almost constantly (and I can tell he really is

- it's not just typical cat behavior, this is different). He

completely refuses dry food now, which is what he ate for 4-5 years

before this started, and will only eat canned food now so I can't just

leave food out for him 24/7. We just retested him and his T4 is .4.

Vet said this is as low as the test will even detect. I thought maybe

we should increase his dose a bit more anyways but vet wants to

decrease it slightly and retest in a week (but I talked him into a

month - I can't afford to do it again next week).

His heart rate stays at a pretty fast clip (180-200, I'm told 150 is

normal for cats) and this isn't an active cat at all. He sleeps 23

hours of the day. Sometimes he's 150-160 and others it's closer to

200 for no reason I can detect. I'm worried about heart problems as

he ages of course due to this.

No other tests have been done for thyroid except T4. Is this standard

for cats with hyperthyroid? I don't know much at all about

hyperthyroidism in humans much less cats. Does anyone have any

experience with this in cats and give some advice? Reliable webpages

to read? Now that I know how messed up this is in humans, I'm not

sure what to trust as far as cats go.

My other cat has ballooned because of 's increased eating habits.

I've tried to feed them separately but then she refuses to eat at all

until he comes out of the room (which actually, would probably be a

good thing for her, at least in the short term *g*).

Anyway, thanks in advance if anyone can offer me some advice. Oh and

he's on Methamizole .5 mg twice a day. That's his new decreased dose,

down from 1 1/2 pills twice a day.

Jul