Hairy Situation

[Inaaca]

Oh noes.. Teger, my kitty is ill.. Help her, Kuat! You're the medical expert around here.

No, but really.. She hasn't been eating much the past few days, so we took her to the vet yesterday. Word just got in that she has something called hyperthyroidism.. She needs to take pills for it.. oh boy she's gonna love that..

In any case, I'm a little worried for her since she'll hardly touch her food, but hopefully she'll pull through okay..

[The Dankness]

Man, that sucks. I had a weird cat problem recently too. We went outside and heard the cat, so I checked the garage, which is where she usually goes, but she wasn't there. Eventually we found her in the engine of my mom's car. Her eye's been a little swollen ever since.

You should hide the pills in something she likes to eat. That's what we used to do when our dog got sick years ago.

[Inaaca]

Yeah, I think that's what we're gonna try. I doubt we'll get her to take em unless we hide them in her food.

In the engine?? Sheesh, that's a little odd.. Teger's been going in places she doesn't usually go too.. I think she's just getting bolder since we don't let her go on the dinner table and kitchen counter. Lately we found her lounging in the bathtub, in the bathroom sink, top of the microwave.. Funny, heh..

[Captain Galaxy]

Dank nuggs! Your cat is taking over!

[Inaaca]

Hmm.. well we got the pills. I found out that she needs to take one of them every day for the rest of her life.. @_@; The only other options are radioactive iodine treatment or surgery, both of which are supposed to cure the condition for good, but not 100% guaranteed, and both of which are hella expensive. So yeah, we're doing the pill method.

I did some research on this feline hyperthyroid condition, and found that Teger pretty much matches all of the symptoms except one: Increased appetite and thirst. Now, she hasn't been eating, which I thought was odd.. Because of that, we had to force feed poor Teger the pill, which actually wasn't as hard as I thought, even though she resisted.

I found out later that the vet also said Teger has a cavity. AH! So that's why she's not eating much.. We gave her softer food, but she's still not eating like she used to.. We're gonna have to get the tooth fixed too I think.. >.>

[Captain Galaxy]

Dang, that sucks, I'm really sorry to hear that. Poor Teger. We ought to pay her a visit...

[Kuat]

What exact symptoms does she demonstrate?

Hyperthyroidism is a rather vauge term; did the doc call it anything more specific? It's like saying you have cancer but not where it is, heh. The thyroid-related pathway involves a few steps, and can be effected by different organs. Your doc suggested radioactive iodine treatment/surgery, so from what I can gather she either has Grave's disease or a tumor of some sort.

[Graves disease (link: www.ngdf.org/faq.htm) is in summary an autoimmune problem. There is a receptor (think of a light switch) on thyroid cells that an antibody works as a "false on" for. Basically it turns something on that shouldn't be on. The antibody is recognized by the receptor as thyriod stimulatimg hormone (TSH), causing, as you can guess, stimulation of the thyroid gland.]

[Radioactive iodine is used because the thyroid gland uses iodine in combination with thyroid hormone to make the end product of thyroxine (in either t4 or t3 forms). Giving radioactive iodine is essentially specifically poisoning the thyroid gland, destroying most of it. If you were to choose either radioactive iodine or surgery, I'd go with the iodine hands down. Unless your cat is very old... but then again, I'd still go with the iodine. By the way, your cat is still likely to take pills, because with most of the thyroid glad destroyed, you will need to get hormone from somewhere.]

Are the pills thyroid hormone (I think they are called Synthroid) by the way? What are they called otherwise?

[Inaaca]

Well let's see.. Recently we've noticed symptoms like unwillingness to eat/drink, growing more serious over time. I'm starting to think this goes beyond any toothache, since she's starting to refuse the canned food, but quickly ate her favorite crunchy treat things.. Hair loss.. she had gotten fleas recently, so we put it off to excessive scratching, but may be a symptom as well.. Diahrea, vomiting.. She's been less active lately also, and I think she's getting weaker from not eating..

We're taking her back to the vet today before her eating condition gets any worse. All the vet said last time was hyperthyroid, nothing more specific. I'm looking at the pill bottle and it says Methimazole 5mg on it.

[Inaaca]

Well, took her back to the vet. The cavity can't be what's stopping her, it's not a chewing tooth and it isn't too critical to take care of at the moment. He didn't have an answer as to what could be causing her eating problem, since most of their hyperthyroid cats are skinny, hyperactive, big eaters. They gave her some fluids, got a fecal sample, and she's losing weight. They also gave her an injection of B comp., vetalog, (?) to utilize the side effect of stimulating her appetite.

When we got home she ran straight to her food bowl, but didn't eat anything. The vet suggested giving her tastier things like chicken broth, etc. We gave her some tuna and she chowed that down.. I dunno, she's definitely hungry enough, but she won't eat her normal food for some reason..

[Kuat]

Yeah, I am stumped as to why a hyperthyroid cat does not have an absoluely voracious appetite. Thyroid's main function is to increase metabolic rate, so yeah. What I would think is that there is more than one problem at work. Vomiting especially... maybe she has food poisoning of some sort? That would also explain her aversion to the usual food you give. Bleh, sorry I can't be of help or anything. Maybe you can ask the vet if food poisioning is a possibility as well?

Anyway, I wish your cat the best of luck. May this pass very quickly.

[Kuat]

What symptoms does it have that makes it seem like the cat has hyperthyroidism by the way?

I mean, if it lacks being very energetic/fidgety and has that hunger problem, what suggests the cat is hyperthyroid?

Ah, blood test.

[You probably can't touch this.]

As for another hairy situation, I got toothpaste in my hair.

[Inaaca]

Blarr..

Well, Teger seems to be doing better. She was chowing down on tuna for a while no prob. We didn't want her to keep eating tuna forever though, since too much of the stuff can be bad for her.. Mother got her different foods, softer kinds and she seems to be gobbling those up no prob. She still won't eat much of her usual foods, and again I'm kinda suspecting her tooth is bugging her.

She's eating again though and her appetite is certainly back, so that's good. We're giving her the daily pill an' all that, and she's slowly gaining some weight and that lost hair back. Hopefully her aversion to her normal food will be solved once that tooth is taken care of, but we'll see..