Sorin to the vet
May. 6th, 2024 11:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eve_primeI've been fretting lately about Sorin, who has lost a bit of weight while still acting eager for food, though it's not clear that he's eating very much. His activity level is fine. My first guess was that maybe he has dental pain, but when I looked online, hyperthyroidism seemed like a good match too.
I called the vet on Thursday, but they were booked so far in advance that we couldn't get an appointment until June. So I had to do the really tiresome thing of getting up when they first open and calling for a same-day appointment. My sleep schedule is "unconventional" and not at all flexible, so it was a hassle to interrupt it in the middle, make a phone call, then try to get back to sleep. Thankfully, J went to the appointment with me, and it's just two blocks away so driving was easy.
The vet did a thorough exam and noted that his pulse was 240 beats per minute, which was so high that she thought hyperthyroidism was a good guess. (240 sounded quite alarming to me, but D. looked it up online later and learned that 160-200 is normal for cats.) They took him back to the lab area and did a "senior panel" of blood tests, and with luck we'll get the results tomorrow afternoon. She (the vet) says that she has a 22-year-old cat with hyperthyroidism that does fine with a transdermal treatment, rubbed on the cat's ear every day. That would be easy to do with Sorin, or he would probably be okay at taking pills. (Ajani is extremely good at taking pills.) Also it was great to hear how old a cat has lived to be with this condition, if that's what Sorin has; Sorin is now ten-and-a-half.
Also it turned out that his weight loss was not as dramatic as I was thinking - yes, it's lower than it used to be, but the last time they weighed him, two years ago, it was only about one pound more than it was today.
I called the vet on Thursday, but they were booked so far in advance that we couldn't get an appointment until June. So I had to do the really tiresome thing of getting up when they first open and calling for a same-day appointment. My sleep schedule is "unconventional" and not at all flexible, so it was a hassle to interrupt it in the middle, make a phone call, then try to get back to sleep. Thankfully, J went to the appointment with me, and it's just two blocks away so driving was easy.
The vet did a thorough exam and noted that his pulse was 240 beats per minute, which was so high that she thought hyperthyroidism was a good guess. (240 sounded quite alarming to me, but D. looked it up online later and learned that 160-200 is normal for cats.) They took him back to the lab area and did a "senior panel" of blood tests, and with luck we'll get the results tomorrow afternoon. She (the vet) says that she has a 22-year-old cat with hyperthyroidism that does fine with a transdermal treatment, rubbed on the cat's ear every day. That would be easy to do with Sorin, or he would probably be okay at taking pills. (Ajani is extremely good at taking pills.) Also it was great to hear how old a cat has lived to be with this condition, if that's what Sorin has; Sorin is now ten-and-a-half.
Also it turned out that his weight loss was not as dramatic as I was thinking - yes, it's lower than it used to be, but the last time they weighed him, two years ago, it was only about one pound more than it was today.
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Date: 2024-05-07 09:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-05-08 11:34 pm (UTC)