End-of-Life Pet Choices

[Becky]

Zoom, I'm sorry that you're having to go through this. ((Zoom))

Westtexas, thanks for sharing your insight. Our fur-kids are all getting older, and I often think about what we'll do... I like your idea to remove (some of) the emotion from the decision.

[zoom-zoom]

Silly Lola...except for the incontinence issues she's still her same old self. She woke me an hour ago by standing on me and meowing repetitively, like Simon's Cat. She wanted "mushy food" and her dish was empty.

[PamNY]

Zoom no advice, but lots of sympathy and goodwishes.

Westtexas your advice is helpful. My bulldog is healthy, but he will be 11 years old in July.

[TrekJeni]

Lola suddenly started refusing her thyroid meds (she's hyper) in her formerly beloved Pill Pockets. She is supposed to have blood work done to check her thyroid levels in the next week, but after not taking her meds for several days I'm guessing the vet's going to want to wait, again. We have been getting her meds into her for the past few days by wrapping the pill in a glob of melted cheese (she really is my cat, heh).
(

Zoom Zoom - have your vet prescribe her methizamole via transdermal pen. They do much better on it that the oral. Oral can give digestive issues. You can dose it on her ear instead with the pen. There is a video on youtube to show you how to do it. When Milford was diagnosed hyperT, I learned a wealth of information on the feline-hyperT yahoo group. I would post his full blood panels and within minutes, someone would be going through his charts and recommending different things. It was an amazing experience.

Good luck!

[zoom-zoom]

Someone else recently told me about the ear gel. Amazing. We haven't tried that, yet, since she DEMANDS her pill in a glob of melted cheese, now. I swear she can tell time. Like clockwork she sits in the kitchen and hollers at us every 11-12 hours to give her her pill treat.

Right now we're waiting to get her on meds for incontinence. We tried a tablet (actually intended for dogs), but she won't go near them...not in cheese, not in tuna juice, not in canned food. They have a pretty strong malt odor. So a compounding vet pharmacy is making an oral version for her.

At the vet they did her routine bloodwork for her thyroid levels and they had at least 2 people handling that. She is old and seems frail, but she can growl like a tiger and doesn't take crap. I think they get a kick out of her. The vet seems to think she's doing pretty well, incontinence aside. He was actually pretty surprised that she's dealing with that, since full incontinence is not all that common in cats, I gather. They are far more prone to choose not to use the box, rather than be physically unable to control their bladders.

[westtexas]

Zoom Zoom - have your vet prescribe her methizamole via transdermal pen. They do much better on it that the oral. Oral can give digestive issues. You can dose it on her ear instead with the pen. There is a video on youtube to show you how to do it. When Milford was diagnosed hyperT, I learned a wealth of information on the feline-hyperT yahoo group. I would post his full blood panels and within minutes, someone would be going through his charts and recommending different things. It was an amazing experience.

Good luck!

Just as a side note - scientific studies show that the transdermal gel does not work as well and is not as reliable in lowering thyroid levels consistently as the pill. A new study is coming out in a few weeks that show that most compounded medications only contain about 80% of the medication they are supposed to have (for example, a 100mg/ml solution is actually testing at 80 mg/ml).

Personally, if one of my kitties becomes hyperthyroid, I'm doing radioactive iodine and being done with it.

[zoom-zoom]

Personally, if one of my kitties becomes hyperthyroid, I'm doing radioactive iodine and being done with it.

I sometimes wonder why our vet didn't suggest this. Was it maybe an age thing? I think Lola was ~15 when she was diagnosed.

[TrekJeni]

Just as a side note - scientific studies show that the transdermal gel does not work as well and is not as reliable in lowering thyroid levels consistently as the pill. A new study is coming out in a few weeks that show that most compounded medications only contain about 80% of the medication they are supposed to have (for example, a 100mg/ml solution is actually testing at 80 mg/ml).

Personally, if one of my kitties becomes hyperthyroid, I'm doing radioactive iodine and being done with it.

The KEY to transdermal is to WASH the ear and let it dry before dosing again. No one ever mentions that and I'm always surprised at how many people aren't told by their vets to do it. While you might have to adjust the dosage, kitties with digestive issues do much better on it. I too would have done iodine but Milford never got well enough to go that route. We managed it for almost a year along with lymphoma before he decided to leave me.

[makbike]

You might ask your vet about y/d a new prescription diet made specificially for treating hyperthyroidism in cats.

[zoom-zoom]

You might ask your vet about y/d a new prescription diet made specificially for treating hyperthyroidism in cats.

Interesting...I have never heard of that. The only issue is it would mean isolating her from the other cats for feedings, which is tricky.

[indysteel]

We went the radioactive iodine route ourselves with Sophie. She was 14 at the time. I think it's worth noting that there is some risk that in treating the thyroid disorder, you worsen or create a renal problem. Plus, a hyperactive thyroid can make it difficult to even determine if the kidneys are functioning because the increased bloodflow caused by the hyperactive thyroid can mask kidney disease. So, it's really important to monitor kidney functioning closely when treating a hyperactive thyroid. And talk to your vet about a renal supportive diet.

With our cat Sophie, we decided to go with RAI, rather than a long-term use of Tapazole because she was very difficult to dose. In retrospect, we may have been better off using a transdermal with the hope of balancing her thyroid and kidney issues. While one of her kidneys was functioning just fine, her other was kaput. About seven months after RAI, she experienced renal failure with the remaining kidney. She didn't respond very well to further interventions, and we ended up having to put her to sleep at that point.

[Brandi]

has anyone suggested shaving her bottom? At least it would stay cleaner and you could help her better. Long haired cats sometimes have to have their bottoms shaved for that reason.
Just my two cents.

[zoom-zoom]

has anyone suggested shaving her bottom? At least it would stay cleaner and you could help her better. Long haired cats sometimes have to have their bottoms shaved for that reason.
Just my two cents.

That's something we'd maybe consider--we have a really good Oster clippers for our long-haired doofus who doesn't groom himself and gets overstimulated when we brush him.

Lola is on a med (Proin) to help her incontinence...and it works great. Except for the fact that it makes her foam at the mouth and vomit. She HATES it. It must be really bitter. So it doesn't work as well as it could, since she's losing most doses. The vet is looking into transdermal application or trying the estrogen treatment.

[Becky]

Lola is on a med (Proin) to help her incontinence...and it works great. Except for the fact that it makes her foam at the mouth and vomit. She HATES it. It must be really bitter. So it doesn't work as well as it could, since she's losing most doses. The vet is looking into transdermal application or trying the estrogen treatment.

My sister swears by the Bitter-Block chewables at Wedgewood Pet Pharmacy, having tried all sorts of methods to administer her cat's fluoxetine.

[zoom-zoom]

*sigh* So we made the call and our sweet Lola will be crossing the Rainbow Bridge Weds. AM. We could maybe try different things to get the meds into her (our vet can use a compounding pharmacy to make different chewables or a liquid suspension), but the meds (which seem to work) are apparently giving her diarrhea and she no longer wants to use her litter box for anything, so we've been cleaning up puddles of pee and poop. We're leaving for a friend's out-of-state wedding on Thurs., so we knew we couldn't leave her alone under the circumstances...and boarding would be stressful for her, too. At this point keeping her alive and "healthy" with several meds is just delaying the inevitable.