Hi shellysmom, welcome to Itchmo and so sorry to hear about your kitty's hyperthyroidism.  I've had two kitties that have gone through the I131 treatment with a complete 100% cure.  It's definitely the best treatment out there for the disease.  It's a simple injection, non-evasive and really has no side affects.  They are cured almost immediately, too.  The hardest part is being separated from them for anywhere from 4-7 days.  But, it's harder on you than on the kitty!

The alternative is just a lifetime of Tapazole, which has side affects like blowing out the kidneys.  I did that treatment for my first hyperthyroid cat, and wish I would have done the I131 instead as he died from renal failure.

After kitty comes home, she'll need to be isolated in a separate room for a couple of weeks until all the radioactive iodine leaves the body. I actually bought a geiger counter and used it on them until they registered in the safe range.  I also found it strange that only the urine is still radioative and not the stool.  Also, only certain parts of the body (where the thyroid glands are) registered any radioactive readings.

Dealing with the radioactive litter after the kitty comes home is an experience.  In the state I live in, I had to bag it and return it to the vet!  I couldn't by law just throw it in my garbage cans (so it wouldn't end up in the landfill dump).  I believe each state is different but your vet will know.

I highly recommend the treatment because of the success I've had with my two.  They came home like they never left, didn't forget who we were and were more loving than ever.  Other members here have also had the treatment and I'm sure they'll post about it.

Best of luck with the treatment and keep us informed!

Shellysmom, our KiKi who is now deceased (not from hyper-T) had the I131 done.  She could not tolerate any of the meds to treat it so we decided on the I131.  We flew with her first class, mind you  , to Seattle from Alaska to have the treatment done.  She only had to stay 3 days.  Now with her, she ended up hypo-thyroid afterwards.  Because of the distance we had to travel, the Dr decided that he would give her a little more than normal to prevent her from possibly having to come back.  But the hypo-thyroid did not affect her and it was not real low, she did just fine.  No more vomiting, ferocious eating, etc and it did cure her.  Make sure they not only do blood work but also do a urinalysis to check everything before the treatment although the Dr doing the treatment will probably ask for that before he will begin.  The hardest part of the whole thing was her serenading first-class passengers with her meows all the way back from Seattle, she just wanted out of the darn cage.  Really the whole trip and experience was harder on us than on her, she handled it extremely well including the part where we had to take her out of her carrier while going thru security, that scared me, I thought she would get loose and run all over the airport but she was just more curious than anything. 

By the way, there are some I131 facilities that actually have cameras and you can log onto their website and check in on your kitty while they are there.  We didnt have that but I have seen it.  Good luck and keep us posted.   

ETA:  We did not put her in a separate room afterwards, we were told by the Dr to just not sleep right next to her and not be real close with her alot especially close contact up to our faces, etc...he said that we get as much as exposure to the radio-iodine on one plane trip cross-country, I dont know if thats true or not.  Now that I read Nabiya's info, Im going oh great.... We did have to scoop the pee-pee's with gloves and hold them in covered containers for 3 months or so before we could dispose of it.  I think each state may have different rules. 

Welcome to Itchmo Shellysmom. Hope the procedure goes well for your lil kitty and a lot of very good, kind people on here have the best advice about kitties as lots have gone thru same thing with their lil babies too.

Welcome to itchmo....

I wish I had chosen this treatment for my kitty Jessica last Nov...but I didn't and the medicine did put her kidneys back into renal failure (she had slowly completely recovered from the pet food induced acute renal failure) as we think her kidneys were not strong enough for another assault...

I do think getting her kidneys checked out ahead of time is very wise....and I wish you the very best!

shellysmom Welcome to Itchmoforums.

My 11 year old cat, Molly, had the treatment last August, after being on tapazole for a few months. She stayed at the clinic for 3 days, and the injection went off without a hitch. I kept her confined to her favourite front bedroom with her cat pal, Genji, but we had lots of visits.

The litterbox contents had to be kept for a month, and the main thing was keeping the dogs from hunting for kitty cigars.

I have to say that Molly's temperament improved considerably. Before the treatment, she could be quite testy. Now she is sweet and cuddly. Her T-4's have been OK since the treatment.

Welcome to Itchmo!

You've already heard references to kidney-related issues.

You might want to read about radioiodine treatment from the perspective of a specialist (not a Vet) in CRF...here.

Those are good articles Andycat.  Another issue that isnt talked about though and that is sometimes with hyper-thyroid, even if it is controlled with meds, they can go on to develop heart disease.  And sometimes more and more meds are needed to keep the hyper-T under control as time goes on.  So it can be a catch 22.  In our case, we had no option, as the meds made our cat sicker so we chose the I131.  It is very important to get all the labwork done and urinalysis done before even considering I131 (and that is while they are not on any meds in order to get a good picture of things).  I would definately want to get all the labwork and urinalysis and whole history of the pet and have a consultation done by a kidney specialist and also talk to the I131 Dr.

One thing I noticed is that Shelleysmom said it was diagnosed in her kitty but didnt say whether that was thru T4 testing or not so I would want to make sure it was truly diagnosed with the proper tests first.  There are also a few Yahoo Groups for feline hyper-thyroidism that might be helpful to join before deciding on an option....    

As a sidenote it makes me wonder how many cats that had hyper-thyroid werent diagnosed with melamine and ca poisoning at the time of the recalls last year because their thyroid was masking kidney problems.  I still remember my old vet saying most of their cases had bloodwork looked just fine and it was only the urinalyis that showed the problem.  Many vets werent running both tests.  But anyhow, that is a off-topic in regard to Shelleysmom and her cat Whitney...