I just fed my 18 year old cat (maybe older) an entire slice of turkey and he was still jumping for more. Same thing happens when I feed him a slice of cheese.

Old Rusty (orange cat) who used to be well overweight has all the symptoms in his old age ...

• Weight loss
• Usually a good or increased appetite (polyphagia)
• Increased thirst (polydipsia)
• Increased activity, restlessness or irritability
• An increased heart rate (tachycardia) ?
• A poor and unkempt hair coat

Any you guys have experience with this? Does the vet (highway robber) charge an arm and a leg for treatment?

The old guy has been a bag of bones for one or two years now. He's always well watered and fed but he's always begging for more!

One of my cats just got diagnosed with it, but she got really ill and had to go to the animal hospital.

You can probably expect to spend $500 on the diagnosis and the pills.

Do it before the cat gets ill and then it's more money to treat, or euthanasia. If your cat doesn't have any adverse reaction to the pills, he should be fine with just those as the treatment.

And yeah, your cat sounds like he's got the right symptoms.

I had a cat with this years ago. Most likely shortened her little cat life. Although still made it to 17 or 18 years old. The other cat which was the same age died of old age at 22. These where well taken care of meow meows.

But thyroid issues are vary common in pets. My personal theory goes that since so much cat food is unsafe for human consumption that it ends up in pet food. Where it is also not safe for meow meow or woof woof. No animal on earth eats a diet of waste thyroid glads of cows and intestines exclusively. As this causes known issues in humans why would any other earth based critter be much different? Its like feeding rotten food to the family dog. If it would make you sick, it will most likely make them sick too. Rotten is rotten.



With that said. For the cat with this a hell of a lot of turkey was bought and no more canned food for her. I am convinced this is why she made it to 17ish years old and not dead by 13/14. She was boarder line for sometime before tipping over to full on.

That sounds suspiciously like Feline Diabetes to me. I've had two cats develop this condition, what you describe is exactly what they were like. They'd be crazy hungry but unable to put on weight, thirsty and irritable.

Jim

I'm allergic to cats but still love them.

Our Jack Russell dog is 16 now and he sleeps a lot more than he is awake but take out a lump of cheese and Whoosh he is at your side. He is almost blind and is deaf, but his nose is as active as ever.

I've buried a piece of cheese at the bottom of his feed bowl and put his food on top, he will dump the food on the floor to get the cheese first then eat his food.

He was 5 when I first met him as he is/was my wife's youngest daughter's pet but he adopted me and never is far from me. He is quiet and gentle with the kids and he tolerates the grandkids pulling him and pushing him, we have to watch the youngest grandson as he has bitten the dog before. Our youngest grand daughter is 8 months and gets really excited when she sees him.

My cat Vandy-1 was suspected of hyperthyroidism because of weight loss. The vet thought this because of weight loss, but I begged to differ because the only reason why she was losing weight was because she wasbeing very picky with her food. Feed her Fancy Feast or Meow Mix...she won't eat or she'll nibble. But as soon as you are cooking dinner she's all over you meowing for table scraps and snarfing them down.

But, since she is 11 years old, I consented to the special blood test for it which cost about $250. The results proved she didn't have it. But it really was annoying to have to pay for something knowing what the results would be just on the vet's suspicion. Don't get me wrong, I want the best for Vandy-1 but admittedly it is already expensive keeping her healthy. Almost 2 years ago she was diagnosed with leukemia and the oral chemo was not working so she had to go to intravenous. She has been doing intravenous on average once a month for almost 2 years and with blood tests to go with, it is about $600 per month. So yes, I'm a little sensitive to additional expensive tests. Her cancer has gone to strong partial remission which means she will continue this chemotherapy most likely indefinitely and/or however long her organs can handle it. She had a liver ALT spike during it at one time which resulted in even more blood tests and medication and changing her chemo meds but she's OK now.

Sometimes I wonder if vets just over diagnose things to make money. Sometimes I'd ask, well, her blood count is down now, can she go to every 6 weeks chemo instead of every 4? And the vet will be like, "Oh, yeah, hm, maybe she can." But I feel like if I didn't say anything, she would never suggest it and I'd continue paying more money than if I DID ask. I know it's a business, but consider what people can afford also and stop pulling on their heart strings to do it.

v6,
boNes

We have 2 cats age 2.

They are sisters.

We had them since they were about 6 weeks old: adopted them at Petco.

What can we do to prevent this?

They are indoor cats. They never go outside. Once a year they go to the vet for a checkup.

They only eat cat food and special milk made for cats. No cow milk. My 5 children know not to feed them anything no matter how much they meow at them and rub against their legs under the dinner table.. We tell them human food will give them ouchies and yuckies.

Hyperthyroidism I think is typically for older cats, so I don't know if there's much to do to prevent it as much as just hope they don't develop it. But, I'm sure their eating healthy not only would help prevent it but keep them healthy overall.

v6,
boNes