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Old April 6th 14, 05:05 PM posted to rec.pets.cats.health+behav
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Default Hyperthyroid cat - kidney question

Hi there,

I have a 12 year old hyperthyroid semi-feral female cat. She loves me, but she's very afraid of everyone else - so I'm trying to minimize the amount of vet trips for her. She weighs 6.5 pounds which is one pound underweight for her.

Her creatinine is normal (1.2), but she's drinking & urinating 2 or 3 times the normal amount. So her urine is dilute (sp. gravity is 1.028). Unfortunately, I can't get Methimazole in her because she is not a big moist food eater and she doesn't like the flavored Methimazole. She won't let me rub the transdermal cream in her ear. She also seems to get sick to her stomach after being on Methimazole for 3 weeks, and refuses to eat for several days.

My vet is nervous that she has a kidney issue because her urine is dilute. But can't that be caused by the hyperthyroidism itself (and not kidney problems)? After all, her creatinine is normal.

We don't want to try radioactiveiodine because if she does have kidney problems, we may want some hyperthyroid tissue left behind. Plus the multi-day stay at the vets would be hard on this shy gal. So about our only option is to remove one thyroid lobe. Right now she isn't dropping more weight, but she is drinking/urinating a lot. Some say that hyperthyroidism can cause a cat to have a stroke at any time even if they appear okay.

Main Question
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Should I risk aggravating a *possible* kidney issue and remove one thyroid lobe immediately? Or should I spend some quality time with her and wait until, say, she loses a bit more weight before removing the thyroid lobe (which may aggravate a kidney problem)?

Thanks for any advice,
Brad