Oreo's I-131 treatment
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Bron and Sheba (GA)
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I’m glad to hear it all went well for Oreo. Keep us updated.
Larry and Kitties
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When do you expect to pick him up? A couple of years ago I had a Tuesday morning droppoff and Thursday afternoon pickup. Time before that it was I think Monday drop off and Thursday pickup and the time before that it was a Monday drop off with a Saturday pickup.
Great news! Hopefully, he won’t have to be there all week. In response to the whole thing about litter, neither of my cats got very high doses of millicuries… Tobey got a tiny 2mCi dose and Gus got about 3mCi as I recall. I suppose if Oreo got a large dose, the litter might be an issue. Our county also has the same rule but my vet did not mention the requirement to hold the litter for 80 days. My vet said they don’t release cats with residual radiation which is higher than ambient radiation and that is why they weren’t concerned about litter.
I hope he has a good week and the reports will help relax you. I would ask them for his BGs, if you haven’t, so you can keep them in his SS. I’m sure they use an AT so just put (AT) next to any BGs taken at the vet.
Can you please put in the “Remarks” the days he is at the clinic for I131? And when you have a chance, could you please copy and paste the info in the top two lines of his 2024 SS into the 2025 one? If you also do it to the template, you won’t have to recopy and repaste it every year. Thank you.
Oreo'smom
Active Member
We're supposed to pick him up on Friday.
Oreo'smom
Active Member
They said he was getting a low dose but I don't know the actual amount.
Fixed the spreadsheet for 2024.
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JL and Chip
Very Active Member
Glad to hear all went well. The last 1-131 I did was quite a few years ago, but back then the clinic gave me a trash can that I was to keep outdoors and store the used litter in for 6 (?) weeks, then bundle the trash can and it’s contents up and dispose of it. I was also advised not to let the cat sleep with me and to limit interaction for a couple of weeks, but also told it was more of a precaution than any great risk. I got the impression it was more of a liability thing at the time, somewhat of a “better safe than sorry” and we have to tell you this from a legal standpoint.
I think most cats come through it very well. My cat became mildly hypothyroid immediately after I-131 but the IM vet recommended against supplementation at the time — said it might hinder the cat’s body from adapting and producing his own thyroid hormones so we’d wait and re-test later. The numbers did indeed normalize so he never needed supplementation. I’ll caveat that by saying I have no idea if that’s the prevailing wisdom these days. Like I said, it was a long time ago.
I think the treatment and waiting was harder on me than the cat. He was somewhat of a medical train wreck so 1-131 pretty much saved his life.
I’m looking at doing I-131 on another cat (maybe two) in the near future so it’ll be interesting to see what has changed. I know the price has skyrocketed.
I’ll be following your journey and hope all continues to go well.
I think most cats come through it very well. My cat became mildly hypothyroid immediately after I-131 but the IM vet recommended against supplementation at the time — said it might hinder the cat’s body from adapting and producing his own thyroid hormones so we’d wait and re-test later. The numbers did indeed normalize so he never needed supplementation. I’ll caveat that by saying I have no idea if that’s the prevailing wisdom these days. Like I said, it was a long time ago.
I think the treatment and waiting was harder on me than the cat. He was somewhat of a medical train wreck so 1-131 pretty much saved his life.
I’m looking at doing I-131 on another cat (maybe two) in the near future so it’ll be interesting to see what has changed. I know the price has skyrocketed.
I’ll be following your journey and hope all continues to go well.
Many clinics won’t give a dose lower than 3mCi but it would be good if you could find out what they gave him. Thanks for fixing the SS. I hope you got great reports all day today.
Yes, this continues to be done; if a cat is hypoT on the first test, they generally wait a little and see if it stabilizes. The only reason they started my Tobey on meds for hypoT was because he was really, really, really low and she did not think he would bounce back and what was left of his thyroid would start working again. We also had concern for his kidneys because he went from having a creatinine of 1.6 to over 2.6. While this “could have” been that the hyperT was masking his actual creatinine, we had been monitoring his thyroid very closely for several months and he was still in normal range when his creatinine was 1.6 and then the very next month, his thyroid values teetered over the edge into hyperT. Once we got him euthyroid with the T4 and T3, his creatinine came back down to pre I131 levels.
Good luck with your next two cats.
Oreo'smom
Active Member
Glad to hear all went well. The last 1-131 I did was quite a few years ago, but back then the clinic gave me a trash can that I was to keep outdoors and store the used litter in for 6 (?) weeks, then bundle the trash can and it’s contents up and dispose of it. I was also advised not to let the cat sleep with me and to limit interaction for a couple of weeks, but also told it was more of a precaution than any great risk. I got the impression it was more of a liability thing at the time, somewhat of a “better safe than sorry” and we have to tell you this from a legal standpoint.
I think most cats come through it very well. My cat became mildly hypothyroid immediately after I-131 but the IM vet recommended against supplementation at the time — said it might hinder the cat’s body from adapting and producing his own thyroid hormones so we’d wait and re-test later. The numbers did indeed normalize so he never needed supplementation. I’ll caveat that by saying I have no idea if that’s the prevailing wisdom these days. Like I said, it was a long time ago.
I think the treatment and waiting was harder on me than the cat. He was somewhat of a medical train wreck so 1-131 pretty much saved his life.
I’m looking at doing I-131 on another cat (maybe two) in the near future so it’ll be interesting to see what has changed. I know the price has skyrocketed.
Those are basically the instructions I got too. Limit interaction for two weeks post injection and store all litter collected during that time in a closed container for 80 days and then throw away. Good luck with your cats.
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