Elderly cat keeping me up all night

[ookaookaooka]

I have an ~18 years old female cat, I’ve had her for about 5 years. As long as I’ve had her she’s woken me up at 5am for breakfast, but recently (in the last few months) she’s been waking me up every two hours begging for food even if her bowl isn’t empty. I’ve tried:

• playing with her before bed to wear her out (she isn’t interested)
  Ignoring her until she gives up (she doesn’t give up and will step on me and my partner and scream all night)
  Shutting her out of the bedroom (she wails and claws at the door)
  Feeding her earlier/later (she still wakes me up three times a night)
  Giving her CBD before bed (it doesn’t knock her out for long enough and I’m scared to give her more, she’s so old and tiny)

I’m out of ideas, I’m at the end of my rope here. I work 12 hour shifts and I can’t function on no sleep any longer.

[Mollycat]

Oh dear, my sympathies, it's very distressing isn't it.

Cats can get dementia and they can also just get more demanding, but they can also do this as a symptom of other physical issues. Before going any further I would check in with the vet if you haven't already, for a full MOT and blood screen - hyperthyroidism would be high on the list of things to eliminate and it is usually very manageable. You say she is a tiny frail thing, sounds like she has a good strong appetite, HT can be ruled in or out with a simple blood test and night time vocalisation can be a symptom of it. There are many other possibilities of course.

[ookaookaooka]

Yeah, the vet says she’s got mild hyperthyroidism but I was hesitant to treat it before because she’s a very picky eater and I was worried that without the increase in appetite from that she’d just stop eating altogether:( Guess it’s time for some thyroid meds.
Thank you!

[Mollycat]

Ah interesting. Hope you have an understanding vet like mine who tells it how it is and accepts that we don't live in an ideal world and cats do not make ideal patients!

Generally the risks with untreated uncontrolled HT as you probably already know are high blood pressure masking kidney disease and leading to blindness and heart failure. Perhaps if it's mild and your vet is understanding there might be an acceptable compromise. My girl was treated with radioiodine but she was not typical, she was overweight with no noticeable increase in appetite - it could be that medicated her system might settle, I know I was dreading the weight gain without HT but in reality she settled to a normal weight on normal food. HT seems to be much more complicated than eat lots lose weight.

Also if you're not comfortable with the meds route Hills do a special ultra low iodine food, effectively it starves the tumour of its building materials for making the offending hormones so the thyroid can only make a normal level. It works very quickly, seems to be quite high calorie, and assuming the cat likes it which mine did it's no more expensive than meds. I was not as strict with it as they claim you must be but her T4 still came down from 70 to 30 in less than 2 weeks.

Don't be afraid to try.