hyperthyroid cat (15 years old) continues to lose weight

Hi,

My senior kitty has been on methimazole for the past year and has been regulated pretty well, but now at today's check up she shows that she dropped another pound (from about 8.5 to 7.5). Since the vet found this a bit alarming, we took more blood and will be running a profile - especially to keep monitoring the T4. She eats and drinks well, acts normally, etc. but I'm worried about the weight loss. They suspect that we'll have to up the dosage. I've been using the transdermal cream that is pre-formulated into 1 ml. syringes. When I first started I was told that this is fine, but the vet I had today personally feels that this method is not as effective as the pill form.

Any thoughts? Depending on what the results show, I'm really thinking again about pursuing the iodine treatment to deal with the thyroid issue. My cat does not pill very easily, and so I'm also wondering if there isn't any hyperthyroid medicine that is offered in a liquid form that can be syringed into the cat's mouth. I recently had an antibiotic that was prepared that way.

Thanks for any advice..

Keith

I had an older cat on transdermal gel and she was getting dosages several times a day. We could not pill her because she would vomit about 20 minutes after pilling.

My younger cat, Lucy, has been diagnosed and we were able to get some chews in 5 ml dosages that she likes. I also did some research into liquid versions of methimazole and found this http://www.drsfostersmith.com/pic/article.cfm?aid=635.

You may want to check with your vet to see if he has worked with a compounding pharmacy.

Katachtig,

Thanks so much for the reply. I do work with a compounding pharmacy, which prepares the methimazole syringes; however, in looking at the link you sent me it also talks about the possibility of having methimazole prepared in an oral suspension - which is what I might be interested in especially if we need to increase the dosage. I'm going to wait and see what the results of the blood panel show, and then I may well inquire about going to a different form of the medication if possible assuming that there is nothing else going on besides the thyroid problems.

Keith