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Our very own clinic cat, Emme had started acting strange in the last few months. She has been ravenously hunger, yet lost weight. She is not thin, but for her she is on the light side. She has been grooming excessively. Her behavior has become quirky over the last few months. We decided that it was a good time to examine her and take some blood. On her physical exam, it was noted that she had a very small heart murmur. She also had lost a pound since her last examination in December. The blood revealed that she had a T4 level of 4.3 (0.8-4.0 normal). Her thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) was <0.03 (0.0-0.3 normal). Given these results, we determined that she was hyperthyroid. Hyperthyroidism is the most common endocrine disease of cats. It is estimated that 10% of all cats become hyperthyroid. Fortunately, the disease is curable or controllable. There are 2 cure choices and 2 control ones. For control there is a medication call methimazole or a low iodine diet called y/d Since Emme is only 10 years old and the rest of her blood work was with in normal limits, we decided on cure. The 2 cure choices are nuclear medicine, iodine (I-131) or surgery. Currently nuclear medicine is considered the gold standard. Surgery has more risk since it involves anesthesia. In the past, we used to do a trial with the medication, methimazole for 2 weeks then consider the I-131 treatment. Studies have shown that the trial does not help with predicting the outcome.
So Monday, June 18, 2018 was Emme’s big day. We had cameras so you were able to watch her from outside and inside the cage . We have an example below. One set of the cameras requires an app and we are not able to share that publicly . We are able to share that with cat parents. Emme does have pet insurance so Trupanion will be helping with her expenses. She was quarantined upstairs for 2 weeks and will return to roaming the hospital after that . Please feel free to call or email us with any questions.
