Porsche
A few years back one of our older cats, Porsche, started to lose weight rather rapidly. It was perplexing because he ate ALL THE TIME. We scheduled an appointment with our veterinarian and she did some tests. Turns out Porsche was suffering from over-active thyroid glands and had a condition called Hyperthyroidism. There is a very detailed article on our PetEducation.com website detailing what this disease is exactly. I’ll sum it up: The thyroid glands in your cat produce thyroid hormones. When they are over-active or “Hyper”, too much thyroid hormone is produced. This can cause many health issues; the most common is severe and continued weight loss. Hyperthyroidism is one of the most common cat diseases and usually affects older cats.
There are several options available for treatment: medication, surgery, or radiation. We chose medication because it seemed best for our situation. The medication used to treat Hyerthyroidism is called Methimazole. We needed to give Porsche a pill twice a day for the rest of his life basically. Any of you who are cat owners know what a hassle this can be with cats. While some cats will eat just about anything, there are just as many cats that will eat only what they deem appropriate. Porsche was fairly picky so we were not excited about trying to give him a pill twice a day! I knew we did custom compounding at our pet pharmacy and looked into it.
We found several options we could have the medication compounded into:
- An oral suspension liquid
- A capsule
- A concentrated oil
- A transdermal gel
- An Animelt (TM)
Animelts
We were most interested in the Animelt – it was a TINY little pill of sorts that was flavored, but best of all – dissolved SUPER FAST. In the cases where we couldn’t get him to eat a treat (not too often, but it happened now & then), we could much more easily “Pill” him as the Animelt’s dissolved so quickly he hardly had time to react.
In the end, our best (and easiest) course of action was to get the medication compounded into the Animelt, and then insert them into Greenies Pill Pockets, bits of cheese or soft cat food. We had to switch things up fairly often as Porsche would easily get tired of one type of treat. At one point we even resorted to DRILLING tiny holes in the hard Greenies treats and inserting the Animelt! But we would never have been able to do any of that if we couldn’t have had the medication compounded into the Animelt! I can’t imagine how we ever would have been able to medicate Porsche properly without those Animelts. They really were a life saver!
If you are interested in compounding your pet’s medication, please call (800-381-7329, M-F 9-5 CST), or email our pharmacy (Pharmacy@DrsFosterSmith.com) to discuss your compounding options on the next prescription for your pet!
More Info:
- Here is a helpful article with more details about compounding your pet’s medication.
- Browse the Drs. Foster & Smith pet pharmacy. Our prices are very low and we offer FREE SHIPPING on all cat and dog healthcare items (including flea & tick preventives).
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
My 17 year old cat, Sandy, is hyperthyroid, and has developed epilepsy as a result. He also suffered liver failure (cause unknown) about 10 years ago. He is on the transdermal gel for the methimazole, and phenobarbital pills for the epilepsy. Needless to say, he has also been on a prescription food for the last 10 years. He would rather take the pill than have that stuff smeared on his ear! I have literally given him the pill with one hand, but have to hang on to his scruff to put the gel on his ear. The only thing worse than putting the gel on is having to clean his ears every week. He really hates that. He sees the ear cleaner and cotton balls and tries to run and hide.
I had another cat, LF (he was Lost, and I Found him), who had a heart condition he had to take a daily pill for. It was very exciting. First, I had to catch him. Then I had to get him backed into the corner where the arm of the couch met the back, sit next to him, hang on tight, and shove the pill down him with a pill gun. Even at that, I might get scratched or bitten. I remember one night when, for some reason, he was super easy to pill. I was letting go of him when I discovered that in my hurry to get it over with, I had accidently grabbed the WRONG black cat (I had two others, and all three had on red collars). A quick call to the vet assured me that Boeing would be fine. But it meant I still had to pill LF!
Another wonderful old cat, Mackeral (also long gone to kittycat heaven), used to have weekly sub-q fluids for kidney failure, and a daily pill for high blood pressure. He would just sit there quietly for his fluids, and took his pills with no fuss. My 3 year old Siamese mix, See-See, has had a couple of urinary infections, and she has to get the shots for them, because I have so much trouble getting medicine down her. I have to wrap her in a towel and practically sit on her. Trust me when I say that she would rather be tossed in the tub and be given a bath!