Hello there! Not sure if any of you have seen my post in the nutrition forum about my adventures with changing over to a raw diet, but one of my girls (Lindy) was diagnosed as hyperthyroid back in June of 2010 and recently I have been running into some issues and would like some feedback and advice from people who may be in a similar boat.
I'm going to try to get to the point and not ramble too much, because I'm typing this on an iPad which is a major pain LOL... Basically, Lindy has been on tapazole twice a day since she was diagnosed, having moderate success. Her problem is, she will get to a point where the medicine has her balanced out, but after a while her t4 will drop down to almost 0 and she will stop eating, become lethargic and lose control of her back legs and balance. At this point we discontinue the tapazole and within a few days her level skyrockets to as high as 23 and we have to start the medicine again. We have experimented with different dosages and nothing seems to keep her at a normal range for long. It's also hard to tell how her levels are by just observing behavior, because her body seems to have a delay when her T4 goes too high or low, meaning if she is really low and stops eating and loses her use of her back legs, her level shoots back up after 3 or 4 days without the medicine but she clinically doesn't appear to be hyper for maybe a week or more after that! Does anyone have any suggestions or has anyone experienced this as well? I have been considering radioactive iodine but considering how sick she gets when her level is low has my vet concerned. She is also on phenobarbital to control seizures since 2005 and thankfully has been seizure free since then, but I wonder if the two meds cause her to have this reaction? I really don't know
All I do know is that when her T4 is too high, she eats a lot and doesn't gain any wait, and when she is too low, she doesn't eat and loses weight... She is down to about 7.8 - 8 pounds which makes me really sad because she should be about 9.5. She acts completely normal and does a good job of convincing me that she is ok.... The little liar. Oh, sometimes her stool will appear to be a lighter color and very dry as well. I've taken her for complete body function blood tests and everything comes back normal with the exception of the thyroid.
Again, if anyone has had any prior experience with this please give me some insight, it is extremely frustrating for both of us.
I'm going to try to get to the point and not ramble too much, because I'm typing this on an iPad which is a major pain LOL... Basically, Lindy has been on tapazole twice a day since she was diagnosed, having moderate success. Her problem is, she will get to a point where the medicine has her balanced out, but after a while her t4 will drop down to almost 0 and she will stop eating, become lethargic and lose control of her back legs and balance. At this point we discontinue the tapazole and within a few days her level skyrockets to as high as 23 and we have to start the medicine again. We have experimented with different dosages and nothing seems to keep her at a normal range for long. It's also hard to tell how her levels are by just observing behavior, because her body seems to have a delay when her T4 goes too high or low, meaning if she is really low and stops eating and loses her use of her back legs, her level shoots back up after 3 or 4 days without the medicine but she clinically doesn't appear to be hyper for maybe a week or more after that! Does anyone have any suggestions or has anyone experienced this as well? I have been considering radioactive iodine but considering how sick she gets when her level is low has my vet concerned. She is also on phenobarbital to control seizures since 2005 and thankfully has been seizure free since then, but I wonder if the two meds cause her to have this reaction? I really don't know
All I do know is that when her T4 is too high, she eats a lot and doesn't gain any wait, and when she is too low, she doesn't eat and loses weight... She is down to about 7.8 - 8 pounds which makes me really sad because she should be about 9.5. She acts completely normal and does a good job of convincing me that she is ok.... The little liar
. Oh, sometimes her stool will appear to be a lighter color and very dry as well. I've taken her for complete body function blood tests and everything comes back normal with the exception of the thyroid. Again, if anyone has had any prior experience with this please give me some insight, it is extremely frustrating for both of us.
. It is a horrhendous, painful death. I would do anything to avoid that - if nothing else works, I would totally give Iodine treatment a shot..... but I would not go without treatment..... Just my opinion..... Never in my life I would want to experience what I did with Gracie a second time - no kitty deserves that 
