Update on my kitty....

[Garion_55]

On April 27th I had to take my kitty to the vet and i was freaking out because of her age and previous medical history.

Many of you left kind words and thoughts and i really appreciated it.

It turned out that switching her hyperthyroid medication to a cheaper costco brand almost cost her her life.

The new costco meds were worthless. For the two weeks i was giving them to her they werent doing her any good and her thyroid was going at full speed.

Unfortunately thats something that isnt very easy to spot. constant eating and drinking while losing weight are about the only physical symptoms of an overactive thyroid.

It wasnt until she could almost not walk any more that I knew something was wrong.

Thankfully I got her to the vet fast enough that they hydrated her and got her back on her correct meds. The first couple days after that i was really afraid i was going to lose her she was so weak. crawling around on her belly. But she never stopped eating and drinking so that was a really good sign.

So three weeks later after lots of resting and making sure she gets her correct meds twice a day she is at about 90% recovered.

Gained back some weight. healthy appetite.

MY advice would be to never change your pets meds they need to survive just to save a few bucks. IF you do, find out if there is a way for your vet to test them and make sure they even work.

If i had lost my kitty because I was trying to save a couple bucks, well shit im just not sure thats something that i could have gotten over any time soon.



Hug your furkids every day because tomorrow you might not get that chance!

[Warpy]

1. Thyroid drugs are some of the fussiest ones out there

Once a person (or kitty, apparently) is stabilized on one brand, switching brands can be disastrous.

There's nothing wrong with the drugs at Costco or Walmart or any other place we go to save money. It's just that some classes of drug can't easily be switched around from generic to generic to brand name and back again.

[irisblue]

2. Majik & his thyroid problem fur problems....

yeah it took a while to get things right. Hugs for you & your furry .

[PSPS]

3. Regarding the hyperthyroidism...

I presume she was taking Tapazole (Methimazole.) What was substituted?

[Garion_55]

4. same drug

but third party generic. vet thinks maybe something went bad with the batch during handling or shipping.

not sure but i hit her up with two doses 3 hours before the vet and her blood level should have been in the basement so soon after taking it but two doses didnt even show up in her blood work.

[MH1]

9. In the world of human thyroid meds,

there is one called "Armour thyroid" that for some arcane reason is grandfathered from current FDA regs on generics. I think the upshot is the manufacturer of the generic either doesn't have to prove equivalent efficacy, or the standards are much less stringent, or something. I think the reason has to do with how long the brand medication has been available; Armour thyroid is relatively ancient in the pharmaceutical world.

This is probably irrelevant to your kitty unless he is taking a cat version of Armour. But I thought it was interesting.

(I came to know about this because I have to take that, and my mother also did, and I found out fairly quickly that the "generic Armour thyroid" is basically useless.)

[Jack Rabbit]

5. Swashbuckler says he agrees

/s/

Swashbuckler
[font size="1"]Swashbuckler's mark courtesy of Jim Thomas in Wikimedia commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cat_track.svg0
(link:https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en|Creative Commons License], Attribution/Share Alike)
[/font]

[fizzgig]

6. wonderful news that she's getting better

[joeybee12]

7. Great news...knr

[LoveMyCali]

8. So glad your kitty is doing better

and yes, I will hug both of my two furry idiots when I get home from work.

[waddirum]

10. Thank you for sharing that very important information

It never would have occurred to me that such a thing is possible.

Please don't be hard on yourself over this.