Did the vet put the kitty on meds?  I had a cat who was diagnosed at
age 18 and lived another 2 years.

On Feb 16, 8:30?pm, jwmc...@rogers.com wrote:

Hi there,

My cat Bonnie, who is now 18, was diagnosed in April of 2002.  I opted
to go with the redioactive iodine treatment - safer than surgery, and
*most of the time* eliminates the needs for lifetime meds.

Bonnie is still doing pretty well...actually, she has no real health
issues except for arthritis in her hips, and now she is hypothyroid
(low).  This was unexpected and happened after she underwent the
treatment for hyperthyroid.  They said it happens every once in while in
cats whose thyroid glands have been compromised for a long time.  We
hoped her thyroid gland would bounce back on its own, but after a year
she was still not producing enough hormone, so now I'm giving her pills
every day anyway - to treat the opposite condition that we started with.  :(

Hyperthyroid can be managed and you have several options.  I would still
choose the radioactive iodine treatment, as it gets rid of the tumors on
the gland, without damaging the gland itself and in over 90% of cases is
completely curative.

Good luck!
Jennifer
Bonne and Sylvester

I had 2 cats with the condition, the first tooks meds for 7 years and died
at age 18; she was too skittish to do the radiation and be isolated for 10
days... The other took meds for 3 years and died at the age of 20 - too
elderly to consider the radiation solution.  I ordered the meds from Canada
for ages as it was expensive here in the US and the exchange rate made it
financially beneficial to do so.

Laurie