3/24/15
My 12 year old male cat Louie was diagnosed with Hyperthyroidism last November. His weight is down to 7.7 lbs now. His symptoms have been mainly weight loss and diarrhea off and on. Sometimes vomiting.We have been treating him through my homeopath for humans over the phone. 2 weeks ago we gave him one dose of Natrium Mur 200C, unfortunately since then we have not been able to get our homeopath back on the phone.
A little history first: Louie started loosing weight 2 1/2 years ago, after his brother Ray died. We got a feral kitten 6 mo later. Louie’s first blood test was normal, then he got diagnosed last November. In the course of treatment, we had started with Sepia (for general weakness), then various remedies including Pulsatilla and Silica (all usually 30C), also 5 days in a row 1 dose each of Natrium Mur 6C (it was supposed to be 30 C, but I forgot to check what we had). Before he got the Natrium Mur 6C he was very needy, constantly wanting to be held. After those 5 days he barely wanted to get petted.
Several weeks went by, he was very thin, we decided to try a “holistic” vet here. She prescribed Methimazole (topical 2x/day 2.5mg) and a chinese herbal mixture, which our cat hated and made him foam at the mouth. We stopped the chinese herbs after 3 days, and the Methimazole after 6 days (he was getting very tired, in the backyard he didn’t walk around, just stood there and stared into space).
Not very holistic, huh? Good for you to watch your cat and stop that approach. Then I read about the 200C dose of Natrium Mur, I was able to order it online, our homeopath had us give him one dose of Nux Vomica 30C first, which got him pretty much back to normal, he had more energy again.
Reading the Organon by Hahnemann, or chapters 2 and 3 of Don Hamilton’s Homeopathic Care for Cats and Dogs, or 3 pages in my Healthy Animal’s Journal, or other books on homeopathic philosophy will help you understand that whenever a remedy is beneficial, you do not want to give a different remedy. You want to wait until there are more symptoms. The key of homeopathy is like cures like. You list ALL the symptoms, then find the remedy that matches as many of the symptoms as possible. You are not treating hyperthyroidism – you are treating unique Louie.
3 or 4 days later, we gave him the one dose of 200C Natrium Mur. His reaction was, that he at first started coming into my bed more at night again, after 2 days, he wanted to be close all night, even layed on top of me trying to sleep. I couldn’t get any sleep so I closed him out of the bedroom for a couple of nights. To me that is not a good reaction. After about 3 days he got diarrhea.
Sometimes we see diarrhea as a clearing symptom, or in this case a return of an old symptom (good). But that should be along with overall improvement, which there is not here. So at this point, the Nat mur 200c seems to be the incorrect remedy.
We were unable to reach our homeopath and I did not want to interfere with the remedy, therefore we didn’t give anything homeopathic for the diarrhea, I just gave him a little slippery elm (per Dr. Pitcairn’s book).
The fourth day we started him on 4 drops of Thyroid Gold. It’s almost 2 weeks since we gave him the 200C Natrium Mur. So my question is,
1) was that a good or a bad reaction to it
See above
2) should we give him another dose?
Not in my opinion. While Peter Dobias, a BC vet, has had excellent success in early hyperthyroidism using Natrum muriaticum, many other homeopathic vets do not report that it works as well for them. I have used a range of remedies, though N. mur. may be a little more frequent than other remedies. We still need to treat the animal. I would not want to prescribe for a cat unless it is my patient, but you may try one more dose of the Nux vom until you find a vet or your homeopath returns.
3)Should it be 200C or 30C?
Generally we never go lower in potency. “Like cures like” applies to potency as well as to the remedy selection. You match the current state of the vital force (indicated by symptoms, energy, early warning signs (see my site), then generally raise the potency after there is beneficial response that is tapering off
4) Also, since the Thyroid Gold he has been eating and pooping a little less, but he also has less energy. Should I discontinue the Thyroid Gold? I would since less energy.
5) Also, I order Spirit Essences for Tummy, Stress and Peace (with the kitten). Would the alcohol smell in it interfere with the effects of the homeopathy? There is not enough alcohol to affect a remedy.
We have him on canned Wellness and fresh cooked Chicken, Turkey and Tilapia.
I would stop the Wellness and just feed fresh. We’ve tried raw, but he didn’t eat it. Just started adding calcium to it. He is a very picky eater, kind of an elegant, delicate prince and an excellent hunter (we don’t let him eat the little lizards though because of potential parasites). He is all black with a little white under his chin, just to give you a visual.
Our homeopath has been treating us and our cats off and on for 15 years. I don’t know, what happened to her, hopefully we’ll hear from her again.
Thank You.
Hyperthyroid cats are very difficult to treat, so though your homeopath has done well for 15 years, you may need a very good veterinary homeopath (find a certified one at www.theavh.org)
If you are interested in studying homeopathy for animals to have a better understanding of the basic principles, you can bring me to your area, or I will be having webinars. Sign up for my newsletter (sorry I have not written one for months) and the RSS feed so you will get notice of any seminars. April 6 from 2-3 eastern will be on basic nutrition.
My 12 year old male orange tabby was diagnosed with Hyperthyroidism and placed on Tapazole…After consulting a specialist my Vet decided he may not have Hyperthyroidism. The Tapazole was discontinued…He continued to lose weight and was retested and determined to have Hyperthyroidism and placed back on Tapazole…He continued to lose weight and after further testing he was diagnosed with a B12 deficiency!…He recently completed a series of injections and will be retested next month…He has had no further weight loss!
Excellent. Now is the time to start working with an integrative veterinarian. Call me if you want an overview on how to help your cat live as long as possible. I can help you find the best holistic veterinarian and learn healing skills yourself. Follow the 7 keys to health, of course.
I look after 12 displaced(abandoned by owner)cats ..one is about 18 and was in bad shape when I took over.Making the story short,my vet diagnosed Hyperthyroidism and prescribed Methimazole—After reading the side effects of the medication ,i decided to try and save the cat from these side effects and try natural first.I had some Pet Wellness Silver and have been dosing her with this for the last couple weeks while waiting for my order of Pet Wellness gold.There has been a marked change in her,coat looks better,put on a bit of weight .Still eats like a horse and dr1nks a lot of water—-is there any further advice you can give me to help this little girl on her way ???
Many apologies for delay. I have sorely neglected my website d.t. my health.
Hopefully the diet change was sufficient for your cat. If not, I would suggest you try working with a homeopathic vet for her. http://www.theAHV.org…filter for phone if none are near you. Also check out http://www.HolisticActions.com for lots more support.
My cat is living proof that hyperthyroidism can be successfully treated with a low-iodine diet. Buddy was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism at age 13, after a year and a half of eating a cat food that was “guaranteed” to cause weight loss. Yes, he had lost weight on that stuff, but he’d become very ill, too: he was vomiting several times a day, anxious and yowling all the time, drinking and peeing great volumes of water, was too weak to jump up on a sofa, he even got aggressive with me. The vet also said Buddy’s heart rate was dangerously fast, and he was dehydrated despite all the water he drank. I learned later that the weight-loss cat food he’d been eating contained excessive iodine, which likely over-stimulated his thyroid gland and caused thyroid tumors. When the vet told me the treatment options I balked: either surgically remove his thyroid gland and give him thyroid hormone supplements the rest of his life, or give him anti-thyroid medication the rest of his life. Either would require many expensive vet visits to adjust his thyroid hormone levels until he was stable. I said no to both. I decided instead to restrict the iodine in his diet. As soon as I changed his diet Buddy stopped vomiting, and over the next several months all his other symptoms cleared up. The iodine-restricted diet meant no fish or seafood, no salted human foods because table salt is usually iodized, and no cat food containing iodine supplements in the form of potassium iodide, calcium iodate, or kelp. I read all the cat food labels and at first I could not find ANY cat food that didn’t contain either fish or iodine supplements, or both. So I fed him raw poultry and unsalted bone broth. (My reasoning was that cats evolved eating whole animals including bones, and raw meat was only muscle, so I assumed bone broth should contain some of the nutrients in bones that he needs.) Eventually I found Hill’s prescription low-iodine YD food, and this is mainly what he’s been eating for almost 2 years. I also give him raw ground chicken sometimes, and unsalted bone broth because he loves it. He’s now 15 — and in perfect health! He recently had blood work done and all his blood levels are normal, including his thyroid hormone level. Buddy’s vet said she’d never heard of treating hyperthyroidism with diet alone, but told me to keep doing what I’m doing because it’s clearly working.
My guess is that the iodine supplements in cat foods may be the cause of so much hyperthyroidism in cats.
Congratulations, Marcy. There are actually many causes of hyperthyroidism in cats and I have found that vaccines are the major cause. The best diet is what they eat in the wild, of course, just as you said – organs, muscle, bones (they have great bone crunching teeth) and I like about 10% pureed vegetables, too.
15 and in perfect health is doing great. Check out http://www.Brighthaven.org – Gail was adopting cats 16 and older and some lived to 28-30, and one to 34! Raw food diet, no vaccines, homeopathy, chinese medicine, Reiki, intuitives and incredible TLC!