My cat lily , who is 14. Has hyperthyroidism it makes her lose weight and vomit and other problems. They gave her pills which she did not like. I now give her a cream that goes into her ear and costs thirty dollars a month. I heard about a procedure that costs about 1400. The vet gives her a pill and then radiates the bad part of her thyroid and she will be cured. I'm thinking about this. My vet said her cat who is eighteen had it at fourteen too and is fine. It's a lot of money but lily is so good and smart I am thinking of doing this procedure.
Has anyone here, cat had this done? have you heard about this? What do you think about this?

I have a cat with hyperthyroidism and looked into the radiation treatment. Over the long run you do come out ahead financially springing for the $1400 surgery. I'm spending about $50/month on the ear cream as my cat couldn't tolerate the pills. His hyperthyroidism is now advanced and he requires multiple daily dosages of the cream. And then there's the frequent monitoring with blood tests to make sure that the cat is getting an appropriate dosage of the drug; the problem with the cream is that you can't administer a consistent, precise dosage. I've probably been spending $1200/year on my cat's drug and vet bills. It's been over five years since he's been diagnosed with hyperthyroidism, so you can figure out what the bills have added up to.

The radiation treatment also has drawbacks. Sometimes it doesn't work as effectively as it should. You should Google for info on that.

My cat was not a candidate for the radiation treatment as he also has kidney failure. Sometimes that develops along with hyperthyroidism; sometimes hyperthyroidism masks kidney failure. For the past year I've been injecting him with daily fluids, so figure another $40/month for that, not included in the above total.

I looked into having my cat's thyroid tumor surgically removed. Not many vets do this anymore because of the popularity of the radiation treatment. It's also a delicate, difficult sugery to perform and comes with its own set of drawbacks and possible side effects. When I finally found a recommended vet that could perform the surgery, she decided he wasn't a candidate because he has tumors on both thyroid glands.

One final thing to look into: there is now a special iodine-free cat food for hyperthyroid cats that has the potential to control the disease without drugs. (!!!) My vet has a couple of cat-patients on this and she said that so far it has proved effective for them. But I guess there are some drawbacks to this approach too. I don't recall the reason but my cat was not a candidate for this for some reason. It's still something to ask your vet about, and do some Googling for info.

Good luck! Hyperthyroidism is an incredibly frustrating disorder to try to cope with in a cat.

Thanks for the response. I definitely am going to think more and read more on the radiation.

There has been success with the diet mentioned above....Hills y/d.

my cat had hyper-thyroid problems.
my vet prescribed TAPAZOLE.
its effective.
its what vets give for this problem.
it controls it effectively like other vets have told me.
no cats like it but they have to take it.
tapazole is small . which i drop in his mouth deep down
and then using a little eye dropper full of water i gently squeeze droplets
of water in his mouth = easier to swallow.
i then give a cat treat immediately following just to have him distracted and swallowing again.

i hope lily gets well and in fine form very soon !!!!!!!

I had a cat with this; I had to give him Tapazole, but bad me, I often forgot to give it, so he was not doing well. I finally had the radiation done. It didn't work completely the first time and they had to do it again and i had to pay 1/2 price for the redo(annoying!) It worked after that and he had a good quality of life. Can't remember how long he lived after the Tx, but he was thought to be at least 16 when he died, and he wasn't young when he had it done.