Hi everybody,
Meet Pallina, my cat. Her name might sound funny to a not Italian ear, but over here it's a rather common name for a femal cat, it means "Little Ball". She's 16 yo, I found her on a freezing morning in January 2002 and took her home. My idea was to finding her a good home but, as you can imagine, I didn't find it.
In this picture you can see her, the photo is 5 years old, but she's just the same.
She's always been in a very good health, her trips to the vet were for the vaccines only and for blood checks once or twice a year.
Her appetite had always been very good, she would eat so much that she was round, as her name would lead you to think. Her weight was around 10 to 11 lbs (4.8 to 5.2 kg), she was round and soft.
Then last year in May, I noticed she was eating less and less and her weight was obviously decreasing. It was when Lola, my other cat who now is at the Rainbow Bridge, was very sick from a rare disease.
Pallina is a very sensible cat, I thought she was sensing the dramatic situation and was losing her appetite.
But when Lola bounced back to a very good condition in the two months before the surgery, Pallina was still going down, so I took her to the vet that ran a blood test and an ultrasound scan. He found a cholangitis and a slight inflammation of the upper tract of the digestive system, so his diagnosis was of hyperthyroidism. This first diagnosis was confirmed by the blood test with the thyroid levels above the high range. Her weight was down to 8.4 lbs (3.8 kg)
It was quite a surprise to me, because all her symptoms were opposite to the hyperthyroidism. She was eating less, she was quieter, sometimes lethargic, not aggressive, no diarrhea and no faster heartbeat.
The vet told me that Pallina has a not common form of hyper-T, called Apathetic Hyperthyroidism.
She was put on Methimazole in tablets, 1.25 mg twice a day, but after 5 weeks we repeated the blood test and found out that she was having troubles with her kidneys, likely related to the medicine. The thyroid levels dropped a lot, so the vet adjusted the dose to 0.625 mg of Methimazole twice a day. The pill I was giving her is 5 mg and tiny, I had to break it into 8 pieces, a close to impossible mission. Because of this imprecision the thyroid levels were going to move up again, the vets decided to switch the therapy to the transdermal gel.
This is working fine, the application is precise and easier to administer.
During those months her appetite was deteriorating and she started eating less and less and vomiting more often. We had another ultrasound scan done and the inflammation of the liver area had increased. They also found a diffused inflammation of duodenum.
I asked the vets to run a test for pancreatitis. At first they refused because Pallina had no symptoms of it and the test is an expensive one, but I insisted and they did it. The test was positive for pancreatitis, Pallina was given a shot of Convenia and that was all.
We scheduled a visit with a nutritionist and the doctor stated that Pallina has an intolerance to some ingredients and protein, so her diet was changed to a protein that she had never eaten before (pork) and the carbohydrates quota was replaced with a small amount of boiled amaranth seeds.
Pallina liked this new diet, she started eating not less than two 80 g cans a day and her weight was going to increase. She wasn't vomiting anymore.
Then, all of a sudden, on a morning of two weeks ago she refused to eat her wet food and for the whole day she just nibbled it. I thought it was just a "no" day for her, but the issue repeated three more times in the last two weeks. Furthermore she started vomiting again, but she isn't vomiting food as it happened in the past, just gastric juices, as it happens when a cat has their stomach empty. Despite the hunger and the vomiting, she wouldn't eat her food.
Then, on the following day, everything is fine again.
I can't understand what's going on, neither can the vets. Her weight has now dropped to 6.6 lbs (3.0 kg).
All this vomiting of juices is also dehydrating her. She drinks a lot (the only clear sign of a hyperthyroidism), about 100 ml on average.
Other than this, she is rather lively, alert and active.
In the last days she has become a lot more talkative, opposite to her usual being silent and discreet.
Since the beginning of this story in last summer I told the vet that my intention was to have Pallina treated with the I-131 therapy.
Unfortunately this country is backdated, our legislation does not allow veterinary clinics to handle and dispose of this radioactive material, so in this medieval country we can't treat a hyper-T cat unless we go abroad.
In Europe there is a number of clinics that can do that, at different protocols and prices.
I asked the vets to gather information about those clinics, I gave them plenty of time to do that, but after many months I'm still in the dark and I had to look for bits of information on my own and I have finally found two clinics where the treatment can be done to the highest and most modern protocols.
Only one of the two can be directly accessed by the pet owner, the other one is a referral clinic and they don't deal with others than the vets.
I sent an email to the first clinic and am waiting for a reply.
What I would like to understand is why she has an intermittent appetite and sometimes she refuses the food that she liked a lot a few hours before.
I would also like to read experiences from other people who had the same problem with their cat, treatments, solutions, outcomes.
Thanks so much for the bottom of my heart.
Meet Pallina, my cat. Her name might sound funny to a not Italian ear, but over here it's a rather common name for a femal cat, it means "Little Ball". She's 16 yo, I found her on a freezing morning in January 2002 and took her home. My idea was to finding her a good home but, as you can imagine, I didn't find it.
In this picture you can see her, the photo is 5 years old, but she's just the same.
She's always been in a very good health, her trips to the vet were for the vaccines only and for blood checks once or twice a year.
Her appetite had always been very good, she would eat so much that she was round, as her name would lead you to think. Her weight was around 10 to 11 lbs (4.8 to 5.2 kg), she was round and soft.
Then last year in May, I noticed she was eating less and less and her weight was obviously decreasing. It was when Lola, my other cat who now is at the Rainbow Bridge, was very sick from a rare disease.
Pallina is a very sensible cat, I thought she was sensing the dramatic situation and was losing her appetite.
But when Lola bounced back to a very good condition in the two months before the surgery, Pallina was still going down, so I took her to the vet that ran a blood test and an ultrasound scan. He found a cholangitis and a slight inflammation of the upper tract of the digestive system, so his diagnosis was of hyperthyroidism. This first diagnosis was confirmed by the blood test with the thyroid levels above the high range. Her weight was down to 8.4 lbs (3.8 kg)
It was quite a surprise to me, because all her symptoms were opposite to the hyperthyroidism. She was eating less, she was quieter, sometimes lethargic, not aggressive, no diarrhea and no faster heartbeat.
The vet told me that Pallina has a not common form of hyper-T, called Apathetic Hyperthyroidism.
She was put on Methimazole in tablets, 1.25 mg twice a day, but after 5 weeks we repeated the blood test and found out that she was having troubles with her kidneys, likely related to the medicine. The thyroid levels dropped a lot, so the vet adjusted the dose to 0.625 mg of Methimazole twice a day. The pill I was giving her is 5 mg and tiny, I had to break it into 8 pieces, a close to impossible mission. Because of this imprecision the thyroid levels were going to move up again, the vets decided to switch the therapy to the transdermal gel.
This is working fine, the application is precise and easier to administer.
During those months her appetite was deteriorating and she started eating less and less and vomiting more often. We had another ultrasound scan done and the inflammation of the liver area had increased. They also found a diffused inflammation of duodenum.
I asked the vets to run a test for pancreatitis. At first they refused because Pallina had no symptoms of it and the test is an expensive one, but I insisted and they did it. The test was positive for pancreatitis, Pallina was given a shot of Convenia and that was all.
We scheduled a visit with a nutritionist and the doctor stated that Pallina has an intolerance to some ingredients and protein, so her diet was changed to a protein that she had never eaten before (pork) and the carbohydrates quota was replaced with a small amount of boiled amaranth seeds.
Pallina liked this new diet, she started eating not less than two 80 g cans a day and her weight was going to increase. She wasn't vomiting anymore.
Then, all of a sudden, on a morning of two weeks ago she refused to eat her wet food and for the whole day she just nibbled it. I thought it was just a "no" day for her, but the issue repeated three more times in the last two weeks. Furthermore she started vomiting again, but she isn't vomiting food as it happened in the past, just gastric juices, as it happens when a cat has their stomach empty. Despite the hunger and the vomiting, she wouldn't eat her food.
Then, on the following day, everything is fine again.
I can't understand what's going on, neither can the vets. Her weight has now dropped to 6.6 lbs (3.0 kg).
All this vomiting of juices is also dehydrating her. She drinks a lot (the only clear sign of a hyperthyroidism), about 100 ml on average.
Other than this, she is rather lively, alert and active.
In the last days she has become a lot more talkative, opposite to her usual being silent and discreet.
Since the beginning of this story in last summer I told the vet that my intention was to have Pallina treated with the I-131 therapy.
Unfortunately this country is backdated, our legislation does not allow veterinary clinics to handle and dispose of this radioactive material, so in this medieval country we can't treat a hyper-T cat unless we go abroad.
In Europe there is a number of clinics that can do that, at different protocols and prices.
I asked the vets to gather information about those clinics, I gave them plenty of time to do that, but after many months I'm still in the dark and I had to look for bits of information on my own and I have finally found two clinics where the treatment can be done to the highest and most modern protocols.
Only one of the two can be directly accessed by the pet owner, the other one is a referral clinic and they don't deal with others than the vets.
I sent an email to the first clinic and am waiting for a reply.
What I would like to understand is why she has an intermittent appetite and sometimes she refuses the food that she liked a lot a few hours before.
I would also like to read experiences from other people who had the same problem with their cat, treatments, solutions, outcomes.
Thanks so much for the bottom of my heart.