Trick, No Treat: An Urgent Warning for Cat-Lovers, Writers, and…Everyone Else

Horror writers and cats… There seems to be a connection. But then, many writers are cat people.

Perhaps we find a lot in common with those awesome feline wiles and independent characters; perhaps we fancy ourselves as equally above the fray and conflicts of more social creatures. But they frequently end up our steadfast companions, our de facto muses, our deepest of confidants.

We take their presence for granted, depending on their ghostly travels in and out of our writing space, counting on their quiet judgment and unrelenting expectations. We love them. We confide in them. And they matter.

So when their lives spin into mysterious health problems, we are left feeling betrayed by the gods. And because cats so rarely confess (like ourselves) that they have become vulnerable to disease, they (also like ourselves) tend to hide the truth of disorder until things have gotten serious.

Such is what happened to my own writing companions. And what I learned about cats, this newest of feline disorders, and what is happening to our animals universally is important and timely… because our tinkering with the environment has hit home in a whole new way: it has invaded the sanctity of our delusion that we can abstain from what our species has done to this planet. It is now affecting not only our pets, but ourselves. This is a warning. This is about all of us and chickens coming home to roost. And if you love Horror, then surely you will appreciate the irony…

We have caused this one. I am talking about plastics in our environment. And I am talking about their insidious effect on the thyroid – HUMAN and animal.

This post is about an emerging health crisis facing cats in particular and everything and everyone else in addition, and we have caused it. So if you have a cat or many cats, if they are your better halves, if you yourself have mysterious health problems, you need to read this. There is evil afoot. There are tricks in our bags of Halloween goodies.

Hyperthyroidism: A Feline Epidemic

Let me be clear. Cats are not the only ones. I have personally worked with and met so many people experiencing thyroid problems, that when my cats were diagnosed, it got my attention in a big way. A little research showed that dogs and other animals are also affected. But cats are where I learned the harder lesson.

The animals we share our living space with, our food, our water, our environments with, are all being affected… But because this is suddenly new in cats, it has begun to hog the attention of veterinarians.

Our cat specialist advised us that prior to 1979, cats simply did not get hyperthyroidism, like sharks didn’t get cancer… and all vets were essentially taught to not bother looking for it in felines. But thankfully, one young vet did… and he discovered that all of a sudden, cats were developing the disease.

He also discovered that it was because of the growing presence of chemicals we have placed in our living environments – plastics in particular, but also chemicals related to firefighting and fire suppression and fire retardants – things in furniture, paint, construction, clothing, textiles, WATER… EVERYTHING we are surrounded by and now cannot escape…

Cats are developing hyperthyroidism as a direct result of environmental contamination. It is an epidemic. Almost every cat over ten years of age will develop hyperthyroidism. And now, it is even seen in kittens.

Your cat is now a canary…

And if you think I am kidding, you need to read the article just released recently about plastic in tea bags (https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2019/09/27/these-tea-bags-release-billions-plastic-particles-into-your-brew-study-shows/) … The article states “Earlier this year, a report by the World Wide Fund for Nature estimated that on average, a person might ingest 5 grams of plastic a week, the equivalent size of a credit card. Researchers at the University of Newcastle in Australia compiled dozens of studies on the presence of plastic in water, as well as in food such as shellfish and even beer.”

I found out one of my cats, Max, had hyperthyroidism when he went to the vet for an emergency tooth extraction. He had been throwing up constantly (unusual for him), suddenly stopped eating normally, losing a lot of his body weight despite a ravenous appetite, drank like a fish, and became scary-lethargic between fits of feline mania. It turned out that he had broken a canine horsing around with his sister, and the urgency of that matter got us roused from our cycle of excuses and theories and to the vet. He had begun to get thinner prior to the broken tooth, had begun to become obnoxious and over-interested in his sister, also chasing around his brother (a skittish shelter rescue cat), becoming…”mean” when he had been a loving, affectionate cat that snuggled with everyone. We noticed the slight change in his personality, an increase in caterwauling, and a rasping change to his voice. And like all pet owners, we assumed that changes came with age.

Max, now 13, was likely to be entering a possible period of geriatric crankiness. Or so we rationalized.

And we had rationalized it all. We do that as humans, especially when we don’t want to think something bad is possibly lurking… when we contemplate the rising costs of veterinary care. But thanks to that broken tooth and the required bloodwork prior to dental surgery, we found out that Max had a disease: hyperthyroidism.

Hyperthyroidism is an endocrine disease. And like human hyperthyroidism, feline hyperthyroidism wreaks havoc in the body. According to the website for our specialist, “Feline hyperthyroidism is the most common endocrine disease in cats. Early treatment is key! Left untreated, hyperthyroidism will ultimately kill the cat. The disease creates a hypermetabolic state which has a devastating effect on all the body’s systems, especially the heart and the kidneys.”

Cats with the disease show profound changes that creep up on our observation skills, so we tend to not-see them for a while until all of a sudden we notice:

• Significant weight loss despite a sometimes insatiable appetite (sometimes to the extent that they devour everything in sight yet their ribs or hip bones are poking out)
• Possible pot belly (despite weight loss everywhere else)
• Increased thirst and heavy urination (two to three times what is normal in the litter box)
• Increase or a start in massive and sometimes violent vomiting
• Diarrhea (so constant you start looking at their food for the reason)
• Hyperactivity, hyper-attention, hypersensitivity (this includes pacing, racing, fight-picking, girl chasing, atypical or sudden waking up at night, an increase in nocturnal vocalization, excessive sensitivity to touch or sound)
• Clingy-ness (like you start wondering if they know you are about to die or something)
• Voice changes (like you start wondering if they got into a household chemical or ate nonfood items, because that is all you can come up with as an excuse)
• Coat changes (often appearing unkept, matted, greasy…just plain wrong) and including a “blanching” of their coat color, especially in the face.
• Consistently dilated pupils.
• Personality changes – often aggression, and often mistaken for premature dementia.

After I really looked at the symptoms I found myself ashamed that they did not compile in my list-making mind and sound instant alarms. Never mind that it seemed to happen quickly, like over six months or so.

In fact, while I was busy not-noticing what was happening to Max, I was busier not-noticing that it had begun to happen to his sister, Lola. Lola had (at her dental surgery) been found to have a malignant, cancerous tumor between her shoulder blades. Her vet warned that this was probably in the process of metastasizing, and did we wish to be referred to an oncologist. So I was rationalizing her health changes to an assumption that cancer was now at work.

I was wrong. At least as far as we currently know.

Because when we took her in with Max for his annual exam and bloodwork for hyperthyroid medication, we found out Lola also had hyperthyroidism.

And suddenly, it all made sense.

So what were we looking at with this disease?

Here’s the scoop, and it is not pretty:

Untreated, hyperthyroidism will kill your cat. It eventually affects major organs – kidneys, heart… the over-active metabolism drives blindness, and even sudden death, torturing your cat, changing his or her personality, plaguing them with violent vomiting and endless bouts of diarrhea…

Treated, hyperthyroidism will kill your cat slower.

To treat your cat, you will have to see your vet twice yearly (or more if your cat has high numbers), have expensive bloodwork done, and you will have to medicate them daily. Often twice daily. The medication is not too expensive, but it adds up. And there is more…Again, from our specialist’s website:

“Hyperthyroidism is a multi-systemic disease that affects all organs of the body – from the brain to the tip of the tail and everything in between. It severely damages the heart, kidneys and liver by making these organs work harder and work overtime. The body can’t rest, and a negative metabolic state becomes normal. The end result can be total heart failure, kidney failure, liver failure, and the collapse of all systems. It is a common misconception that methimazole will stop this. Its effect is partial at best. Methimazole masks the symptoms of hyperthyroidism, while the tumor continues to grow and the disease continues to advance. Dosage of methimazole needs to be continually monitored. It must be increased or in some cases decreased or stopped as the disease continues to advance until many cats cannot be controlled with medication. When the cats become intolerant to methimazole, these patients are sick and can only be saved with radio-iodine. These are very high risk patients with questionable outcomes. Treat early for a cure!” https://catspecialist.com/radioactive-iodine-faq/

Here’s an interesting fact: methimazole was designed for human use. And it was never intended for long –term use because over time it becomes ineffective…

And this medication (along with its alternate name felimazole), is scary. You are not supposed to handle it with bare hands. Your other animals are not supposed to eat it. You are not supposed to allow waste to accumulate in the litter box especially if you have other cats or nosy dogs or toddlers. Or are pregnant. And, you are supposed to wear gloves when medicating the cat and cleaning the box. To not-do so is a direct and dangerous health risk to humans.

Surprise.

Knowing all that, what do you think this disease will do – when either left untreated in a cat, or undertreated, because an owner either does not know, does not care, or cannot afford treatment? What do you think is going to happen to all of the cats whose disease is not diagnosed and treated in some way, but whose owners are frustrated and tired of cleaning up feces and vomitus and dealing with agitated, sometimes hostile cats? I’ll tell you: they will be dumped, thrown out, abandoned, or euthanized because people do not understand or do not want to understand that cats are no longer low-maintenance pets…that we have sabotaged their lives and a wondrous God-given animal design.

Worse, what does this mean is happening even to people? About what is now invasively and unavoidably in our environment?

According to the Kresser Institute, “The prevalence of thyroid disease [in humans] has skyrocketed within the past few decades. According to the American Thyroid Association, an estimated 20 million Americans have some form of thyroid disease.This alarming trend begs the question—what is responsible for the epidemic of thyroid dysfunction? A growing body of research indicates that exposure to environmental toxins is a key piece of the thyroid disease puzzle.” https://kresserinstitute.com/environmental-toxins-harm-thyroid/

And the alarm bell should be that environmentally-driven hyperthyroidism has gone epidemic in cats…

While job-hunting, I inadvertently found out something that my vet at the time failed to mention – whether because she did not know (a real possibility for non-cat-specific vets as, just as with human medicine, advances in specialties are rapid and radical and hard to keep up with), or if she assumed I did not care or could not afford alternatives, or because like anything else, corporate pressures (a real threat to vet care) translate cat diseases like this into an endless cycle of veterinary charges necessary to keep your cat alive and distort the best intentions of otherwise caring veterinarians, I will not speculate…However…

THERE IS A CURE FOR CATS: radioactive iodine therapy, or I-131 treatment… (It is available for dogs as well as 131-I treatment, but there are many more complications involved for them…see your vet.)

Be aware that it is every bit as scary as the disease and its treatment. But at least it is available, and quick.

Unfortunately, it is also labor intensive and it is expensive.

I-131 Treatment: Radioactive Iodine

Now you’re getting the picture…

This is serious stuff. And if you have a cat, you are probably going to face this enemy. So here is the truth of it:

We treated Max for over a year with medication. We were not warned to not-handle the drug or the litter directly, so I have no idea what that means for us health-wise. It may be a future surprise… yet another not-so-goody in the Trick or Treat bag of Life…

Nonetheless, the treatment was not really “working”… it was more like a Band-Aid for a bullet hole, and I began to worry we were going to lose Max sooner than we were supposed to. It is also the opinion of some vets that medication is just not effective enough, because it cannot stop the disease or peripheral health conditions that it masks and/or enables….but many of them may not know or know much about the options. And when pet owners shrink away from annual visits to the doctor because they consider $50 too much to spend on a cat, they rightly assume that same owner is not going to want to do necessary diagnostics tests that can run hundreds of dollars, and subsequent lifelong medication with its stress and charges, let alone a costly cure that typically runs to the thousands of dollars.

But then I found out about I-131 treatment, and that it has a 96% cure rate.

96%… odds we can literally live with….

Price was going to be an object, but it was also going to be no object, because I would have sold everything I own… And price is in fact up there. As the treatment grows in popularity, there will be probable and increasing ranges in cost, and some variance is already out there. But keep in mind that this is radiation.

There is just no way to get past that fact.

Again our specialist’s website states it well:

“Radio-iodine therapy is the gold standard in human and in veterinary medicine, and is very cost effective. Compare the costs and continued costs of medically treated hyperthyroidism, thyroid surgery, twice daily insulin treatments for diabetes, fractured limb repairs, treating congestive heart failure, treating chronic liver and kidney disease and then compare the curing of hyperthyroidism. The cost to value ratio is amazing. When was the last time you heard the word “cure” used with any major, chronic medical condition?” https://catspecialist.com/radioactive-iodine-faq/

The “medicine” needed is nuclear and government regulated. That means it is not cheap for you OR the vet. Your cat is also made radioactive. In fact, for four days following the treatment, even the vet cannot touch your cat without radioactive protection, keeping your cat in a specially regulated, tightly controlled environment where everything they touch and excrete must be handled like the nuclear waste it is…

Once your cat is discharged, you cannot snuggle or sleep with him or her for two weeks, then you must limit time for two more weeks. Waste must be kept in a special container for up to six weeks after the last elimination at four weeks… months of poo will sit in your garage or on your balcony. (Thank God it is no longer summer…)

And, after four to six weeks, you must have the cat retested for bloodwork to see if the treatment worked, because there are some cases where the treatment might bear repeating. Again, early diagnosis and treatment is key.

Some veterinarians say you should do a second follow-up with a full exam and bloodwork in three more months. If the numbers are in normal range, then the cat is considered “cured.” If not, you may face that second treatment. OR, you may find that hyperthyroidism caused or masked other life-threatening issues… like cancer. Or kidney disease. Or diabetes. Or cardiac issues…

And if all of this suggests an urgency here in diagnosis and treatment to you, you would be right.

The cost of I-131 treatment is higher than most people who own cats can easily afford – especially because cat owners usually own more than one cat and as mentioned, this is now a universal disease for all cats to endure (and if you can only afford one, which do cat you treat? It’s like choosing one child over another…). But over time, the cost of having to go to the vet for bloodwork, the cost of drugs, the cost of drugs not working completely, the insidious progression of the disease and its wear on you, your family, and the cat does add up…it all makes I-131 treatment the very best option.

As I said, it varies…clinic to clinic, state to state… But here in Colorado, at the clinic we went to (Cat Specialist, Castle Rock) it ran $1500 per cat.

It cleaned us out, but we sent Max and Lola together for treatment. They are now working through their post treatment, radioactive afterlife. Their coats feel burnt and dry, they still exhibit hyperthyroid symptoms now and again (which they will as the disease purges from their bodies). But overall, they seem more their old selves – Max, more loving…Lola, less living under the bed… So far, Lola shows the most improvement. We are not sure with Max, who is still thinner and not plumping up like Lola seems to be doing.

I have not yet had our third cat tested, but he has an appointment around the time Max and Lola will have their follow-up bloodwork. And hopefully by then, we will have enough to treat any cat needing a first or second treatment if necessary.

I want to be clear. Most cat owners have more than one cat. Most cat owners have cats because they have been traditionally low-cost, low-maintenance pets.

We have ruined that. We have ruined the environment and promise of a life-long home and health for cats, and who knows what that really means for us or our children.

Guess what? Native peoples were right. And now the chickens have come home to roost in your cats and dogs and even you…Just look at all of the plastic in our lives… and we are eating a credit card’s worth a week!

Wake up!

I guarantee you watching your beloved pet succumb to hyperthyroidism is devastating, as well as emotionally and physically exhausting. What will it be when it is you, your spouse, or your kid?

It is already probably why a new group of cats and even dogs are being abandoned and abused more often: their symptoms are being misunderstood as behavioral issues… as dementia… old age… or

Cattitude…

It’s why people open the door and hope a cat does not come back—that misunderstanding of the call of biology and nature. And now it will be because the cat keeps throwing up all over, or having ungodly diarrhea, or manic moods and caterwauling (which may indicate pain)…

But cattitude is also why writers like me love them. And why and how we come to rationalize changes that are really indicators of the emergence of a serious disease.

And we are talking about a disease here. We are talking about environmental pollution.

And we are talking about love.

Hyperthyroidism is now a condition of cat-owning.

Let me say this again: cat-ownership is no longer a low maintenance thing. You need to be proactive, take the cat to the vet as often as the dog. Cats need to be seen annually; PERIOD. In fact, many vets are now pressuring owners to bring in both cats and dogs twice a year for a complete work-up because advances in veterinary medicine mean earlier, more accurate diagnosis and better treatment options. And these can be very expensive, but this is not about money-grubbing: this is about monitoring your animal for problems which left untreated will rapidly accelerate into more expensive problems if not a death sentence. Because veterinarians are seeing more sick animals than ever before…

The fact that veterinary care is getting as expensive as human medical care is not helping, but it does mean that veterinary care is getting better… And we simply cannot afford to tell ourselves “it is just a cat” or “just a dog”… we have made them dependent upon us. And now we are making them sick. We owe them.

Take your cat to the vet annually…be sure to have bloodwork, a fecal test, and urine test done annually. After age eight in a cat, do it twice a year. Have them look for hyperthyroidism specifically. Tell them. Don’t wait for your vet to wonder about it: tell them to test for it.

And if your cat suddenly starts showing changes… take them to the vet immediately, express your concerns, and do not let anyone pooh-pooh your worries. Be adamant. Watch for hyperthyroidism to emerge. Because the statistics say it probably will, and the sooner you treat your diagnosed cat or radiate your diagnosed cat, the better his or her chances.

This is not going to go away. And if you have ever loved a cat, you know how emotionally charged this issue is about to become.

I highly recommend the I-131 treatment, because it is a chance at a cure, and because I have already seen the aggravation, cost and seeming pointlessness in “treating” the disease with medication.

And I know personally how much I don’t want to lose my cats to this disease. I have also been that poor where options just weren’t on the table, and may be that poor again one day… Do your best to plan ahead when you get a kitten. Set aside monies like a college fund…Make no mistake; I am fully aware that I could do this for my cats because I am married and we have two incomes right now… Others are not so lucky. One day, I might not be again either. But I will never be without a cat in my life any more than I will be without pen and paper.

Ever. And I know there are other cat lovers out there just like me, and cats just like Max. And Lola… And they…mean… everything.

Trick or treat.

 

For detailed information about feline hyperthyroid disease, what to expect, and the process of I-131 treatment… I encourage you to visit the Cat Specialist Castle Rock website https://catspecialist.com/ . Then find a clinic in your area, and be prepared to travel… we travelled 40 miles to get to our provider. And I highly recommend them for Colorado residents.