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Tomie is now started on methimazole for hyperthyroid!

Freela

Freela

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After a long process of blood work and waiting for results, Tomie was officially diagnosed with hyperthyroidism (normal T4 range is 1.5 to 3 and hers was 7.) She is now on methimazole 0.1 mg every twelve hours, which she is not enjoying despite the fact that the meds smell like strawberry gummy bears! The vet said that in a dog or a cat they would likely check blood work again in a month or so, but because getting enough blood to test is so difficult and stressful for her, we will probably just watch her weight and behavior and postpone any blood work for a longer period of time (if at all.) We're to give her this dose for a couple weeks and report back to the vet if she has gained any weight or if her behavior (mainly her over-consumption of water) has changed at all and then we can gradually up-titrate her dose as needed. I figured I would start a master post here in case any of this stuff is interesting to anyone and in case anyone else has a hyperthyroid pig in the future and can learn anything from any of this! Our vet seems pretty excited, she said most people do not pursue blood testing for guinea pigs and thus most people never get to the point of an actual diagnosis. She has actually only treated one other pig with hyperthyroidism (who apparently did well on meds and lived an additional two years before passing of other causes) and so this is a learning opportunity for her too and hopefully Tomie and I can help future pigs through her experience here!

Funny story, I gave her the first dose last night, then walked past a couple hours of later and she was laying stretched out, eyes open, head to the side, and I had a momentary panic that the first dose somehow killed her! But that's just how she sleeps when she's feeling relaxed, it always kind of freaks me out! LOL!
 
I think it’s a great idea and very good of you to make this thread for others to reference. I hope it’s helpful for her. What a scary panic you must have had with her lying like that lol!
 
Freela said:
After a long process of blood work and waiting for results, Tomie was officially diagnosed with hyperthyroidism (normal T4 range is 1.5 to 3 and hers was 7.) She is now on methimazole 0.1 mg every twelve hours, which she is not enjoying despite the fact that the meds smell like strawberry gummy bears! The vet said that in a dog or a cat they would likely check blood work again in a month or so, but because getting enough blood to test is so difficult and stressful for her, we will probably just watch her weight and behavior and postpone any blood work for a longer period of time (if at all.) We're to give her this dose for a couple weeks and report back to the vet if she has gained any weight or if her behavior (mainly her over-consumption of water) has changed at all and then we can gradually up-titrate her dose as needed. I figured I would start a master post here in case any of this stuff is interesting to anyone and in case anyone else has a hyperthyroid pig in the future and can learn anything from any of this! Our vet seems pretty excited, she said most people do not pursue blood testing for guinea pigs and thus most people never get to the point of an actual diagnosis. She has actually only treated one other pig with hyperthyroidism (who apparently did well on meds and lived an additional two years before passing of other causes) and so this is a learning opportunity for her too and hopefully Tomie and I can help future pigs through her experience here!

Funny story, I gave her the first dose last night, then walked past a couple hours of later and she was laying stretched out, eyes open, head to the side, and I had a momentary panic that the first dose somehow killed her! But that's just how she sleeps when she's feeling relaxed, it always kind of freaks me out! LOL!
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I think we have some more members on here with experience with medicating and caring for diagnosed hyper-thyroidal piggies. The medication/brand names my differ from country to country. The big challenge has been in past years to stabilise it.
 
Wiebke said:
I think we have some more members on here with experience with medicating and caring for diagnosed hyper-thyroidal piggies. The medication/brand names my differ from country to country. The big challenge has been in past years to stabilise it.
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I'm definitely open to advice from anyone else who has done this before! I imagine finding the right dose of medication over time will be challenging!
 
I only ever had one piggy called snowy who was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism, but unfortunately after she'd only been on meds for a around 2 weeks she passed away.
I still don't know what the cause was.Wishing Tomie all the best and I'll be following this thread.
 
I"ve had at least two piggies in my circle of piggy acquaintances who lived a while with medication. I'm still suspecting that Bonny has similar issues, but so far the specialist vet didn't do the bloodwork because her thyroid isn't enlarged at all.
Tessy's thyroid is enlarged but her blood test didn't show anything and her behavior is not changed.
Did the vet find an enlarged thyroid while examining Tomie?
 
Viennese Furbabies said:
I"ve had at least two piggies in my circle of piggy acquaintances who lived a while with medication. I'm still suspecting that Bonny has similar issues, but so far the specialist vet didn't do the bloodwork because her thyroid isn't enlarged at all.
Tessy's thyroid is enlarged but her blood test didn't show anything and her behavior is not changed.
Did the vet find an enlarged thyroid while examining Tomie?
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No, not on exam. Just abnormal TSH on blood work. The symptoms we took her in for was weight loss despite good appetite and excessive water consumption.
 
My Pili Pala developed suspected hyperthyroidism in her last year of life - very edgy, fidgety and impatient behaviour combined with slow weight loss. However as she was already on a cocktail of long term gut meds of painkillers for a thickened lower bowel causing IBS-like symptoms and needed daily top up feeding anyway, my vet recommended not to treat since at that time (2018) thyroid meds in guinea pigs were still comparatively new and stabilisation was something that was very much of a struggle.
 
So far we are about four days in on medication and I can already feel a bit of weight gain. I don't think my scale is reliable enough to definitely show it, but I can feel a bit more heft to her body and she feels a bit heavier to me. I think she's drinking a bit less (still more than Misa does though.) Her behavior is still about the same. She doesn't love the medicine but is getting better at taking it, I always try to give her a treat right afterwards as a reward. I have a Tomie alarm set on my phone so that I don't forget meds time!
 
I'm just going to post this here as a 'before' picture because in this position you can REALLY see how much weight she had lost. This is about a week before getting her blood work back and starting meds.
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So we are almost 3 weeks into methimazole and Tomie is doing well. She put on some weight in the first one to two weeks, but has stabilized since then, so I sent an e-mail to the vet to see if they want to increase her dosage from the 0.1 mg she is now on (they said that's a very low dose.) Her body does feel more 'padded' now and we can't feel her spine and shoulder blades the way we could when she started. Just waiting to see her water intake now that we're home from the cottage, she always drinks less there because she gets so much more moist food grazing on the lawn!
 
Back from the vet... because her weight is now holding steady but not really increasing more, the vet decided to increase her methimazole to 0.3 mL from 0.1 mL. We will try this for a month or two and then take her back and reassess. I've been told to keep an eye on her to make sure she maintains activity and appetite because the risk is pushing her thyroid levels too far in the other direction, but this is apparently still a fairly low dose so we have our fingers crossed we won't see those issues. The vet is happy with her otherwise- happy and bright and at least staying even in the weight department. They did a physical and her abdomen is normal, teeth are good, no obvious other problems.
 
Freela said:
After a long process of blood work and waiting for results, Tomie was officially diagnosed with hyperthyroidism (normal T4 range is 1.5 to 3 and hers was 7.) She is now on methimazole 0.1 mg every twelve hours, which she is not enjoying despite the fact that the meds smell like strawberry gummy bears! The vet said that in a dog or a cat they would likely check blood work again in a month or so, but because getting enough blood to test is so difficult and stressful for her, we will probably just watch her weight and behavior and postpone any blood work for a longer period of time (if at all.) We're to give her this dose for a couple weeks and report back to the vet if she has gained any weight or if her behavior (mainly her over-consumption of water) has changed at all and then we can gradually up-titrate her dose as needed. I figured I would start a master post here in case any of this stuff is interesting to anyone and in case anyone else has a hyperthyroid pig in the future and can learn anything from any of this! Our vet seems pretty excited, she said most people do not pursue blood testing for guinea pigs and thus most people never get to the point of an actual diagnosis. She has actually only treated one other pig with hyperthyroidism (who apparently did well on meds and lived an additional two years before passing of other causes) and so this is a learning opportunity for her too and hopefully Tomie and I can help future pigs through her experience here!

Funny story, I gave her the first dose last night, then walked past a couple hours of later and she was laying stretched out, eyes open, head to the side, and I had a momentary panic that the first dose somehow killed her! But that's just how she sleeps when she's feeling relaxed, it always kind of freaks me out! LOL!
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My piggie has just been through exactly the same thing! I am waiting for my vet to get back to me on some pricing. I'm anxiously waiting and can't wait to start her on the methimazole! I'll post again in a month or so with her progress.
 
Today was Bonny's next vet appointment and this time I insisted on a blood test. Everything came back all clear so Bonny's weight loss is not caused by the thyroid.
Still don't know what makes her loose weight but she seems to be in perfect health.
 
Viennese Furbabies said:
Today was Bonny's next vet appointment and this time I insisted on a blood test. Everything came back all clear so Bonny's weight loss is not caused by the thyroid.
Still don't know what makes her loose weight but she seems to be in perfect health.
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That's so frustrating! It's just nice to have an answer, kwim? I hope you figure something out!
 
So Tomie has been gaining at least a little bit of weight on her current dose... we're pretty happy with her progress so far. She seems to feel good, acts normal, and is at least holding steady or making some small gains. She's going to see the vet again at the end of the month to see about keeping dosing the same or increasing again.
 
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