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Iodine injection treatment for hyperthyroidism
- Thread starter 5siamese
- Start Date
It works in about 95% of the cases. Your cat would need to spend a few days at a special facility until most of the radioactive waste was out of his/her system. After that, there are a few precautions you take with the litter for about 2 weeks afterwards (the regulations vary from state to state, country to country). Some cats feel better within the first few weeks, but it usually takes between one month and three months (sometimes as long as six) for everything to become normal again. A small percentage need thyroid supplementation after treatment (it's much easier to deal with than the methimazole in terms of dosing). In most cats, their own normal thyroid cells kick in and the cat is no longer hyperthyroid. The treatment only treats the thyroid, so be aware that if your cat has other issues, those will still exist.
I think cloud shade pretty well covered it. Katy had I131 (radioactive iodine) two years ago and suffered no side effects at all.
I started her on methimazole first, but it made her really, really sick, so I had no choice but to go with I131. I think it's fairly routine though to try kitties on methimazole before doing I131 in part to make sure their kidneys will function normally without their being hyperthyroid. A lot of cats can't tolerate the medication though.
One thing you do want to have checked thoroughly is you kitty's kidney function. Here's a link to some really good info regarding hyperthyroidism. It explains how kidney function is affected by hyperT.
http://www.cfa.org/articles/health/hyperthyroidism.html
I started her on methimazole first, but it made her really, really sick, so I had no choice but to go with I131. I think it's fairly routine though to try kitties on methimazole before doing I131 in part to make sure their kidneys will function normally without their being hyperthyroid. A lot of cats can't tolerate the medication though.
One thing you do want to have checked thoroughly is you kitty's kidney function. Here's a link to some really good info regarding hyperthyroidism. It explains how kidney function is affected by hyperT.
http://www.cfa.org/articles/health/hyperthyroidism.html
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #4
Thank you Cloud shade and Debskats for your input. According to the complete Blood Panel results, Sage does not have any underlying kidney issues. Her acctual thyroid value was 5.43 (normal range is 1-4) so she is considered to be a pretty mild case. We did try the antithyroid drug for a month but her skin broke out terribly and we had to discontiue.
I was wondering if anyone has info on holistic vets treating hyperthyroism and if it is a good idea to give it a try before proceeding with the Iodine treatment.
I was wondering if anyone has info on holistic vets treating hyperthyroism and if it is a good idea to give it a try before proceeding with the Iodine treatment.
I haven't heard of anyone who had any long term success with holistic methods. People have tried things, like glandulars, but I don't know that anyone has had their cat survive on them for long periods of time. Of the methods commonly used to treat hyperthyroid cats, radioiodine is the safest and most effective. Cats who have received radioiodine live an average of 4 or more years after treatment compared to 2 years for those receiving methimazole (http://www.avmi.net/NewFiles/Hyperth...Links/071.html).
Personally, I'd go for the I-131. The longer you wait, the more the adenoma (thyroid tumor) will grow. The larger tumors require more radiation to kill off if they can do so at all. I wish I had taken Spot in sooner, but I kept him on medication for many months because it was less costly in the short term. As a result of the tumor growing unchecked for nine months or more (I found him as a stray, so I don't know how long he had been sick before I found him), the treatment didn't work the first time. We repeated the treatment, but by that time the heart disease he also had progressed to the point where we never learned whether the treatment would be effective.
Personally, I'd go for the I-131. The longer you wait, the more the adenoma (thyroid tumor) will grow. The larger tumors require more radiation to kill off if they can do so at all. I wish I had taken Spot in sooner, but I kept him on medication for many months because it was less costly in the short term. As a result of the tumor growing unchecked for nine months or more (I found him as a stray, so I don't know how long he had been sick before I found him), the treatment didn't work the first time. We repeated the treatment, but by that time the heart disease he also had progressed to the point where we never learned whether the treatment would be effective.
Katy also has HCM (hypertrophic cardiomyopathy). In fact, that's what first sent us looking for hyperT. Her free T4 was just very slightly elevated the first time we checked it and normal the second time. The vets still felt that she had hyperT though so she had 2 different T3 supression tests, both of which were equivocal, and she finally had a thyroid scan that confirmed that she had hyperT. What a crazy and frustrating few months that was! And she got so sick from the methimazole!!!
Since Katy was treated with I131 in the summer of 2005, her HCM so far hasn't progressed but unfortunately it didn't improve either. She'll go back to Iowa State for a repeat echocardiogram in November of this year.
Since Katy was treated with I131 in the summer of 2005, her HCM so far hasn't progressed but unfortunately it didn't improve either. She'll go back to Iowa State for a repeat echocardiogram in November of this year.
In Spot's case, the echo indicated that his HCM was idiopathic--not caused by the hyperthyroidism. I'm sure that having a sped-up metabolism exacerbated the problem, but for him, it wasn't the cause and it may have progressed on its own even if we had cured the thyroid aspect.
I'm not really sure. The cardiologist report states, "The findings suggest mild hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. This process may be idiopathic in Spot's case because the thyroid disease has been controlled for several months." I'm guessing that because the murmur advanced even while his thyroid levels were stable, they felt it could have another cause. I would suggest that heart murmurs should be investigated and monitored whenever it is possible because there are medications that can slow or stop the progression of heart disease. My biggest regret with Spot is that I did not remember to take him back for a follow-up echo to monitor his heart. If I had, we would have seen his condition beginning to worsen (heart disease is often silent otherwise) and we may have been able to get him on medications to less then strain on his heart.
I'm so sorry about Spot. Katy was started on atenolol and Norvasc for her heart and they really helped her symptoms. She had a couple of follow-up echos after she was started on the meds and now just goes yearly as long as there isn't any change.
