Struggling with Medication

[Bagpuss1200]

Hi all you wonderful cat owners out there! Gizmo has been having a bit of a time with her health lately. She has been put on on frusemide and antibiotics but I have murder trying to get her to take them. I bought some pill pockets which worked for a couple of days but now she has them sussed. This morning I resorted to crumbling them into her food, she soon turned her nose up at that! I'm getting desperate now, she's not a lap cat so trying to put them in her mouth is no go! Any suggestions you lovely people?

I have no idea what a pill pocket is but I always use these - https://www.vetscriptions.co.uk/products/buster-pill-popper?srsltid=AfmBOooYnVvcXrf-YH1Nt5Z7VE46oOvuBIZiqhZiSMll2EDSLfeeOymO

I also coat the tablet in butter to make it more palatable and slip down more easily.

Gizmo is gorgeous.

I always ask for liquid medication so I can put it directly in their mouths with a syringe. Is that an option? It's usually a bit more expensive than pills but so much easier.

My late girl was on 8 pills a day. I had a special pill syringe. I put them all in there and she took them in one go. She was an exceptionally compliant Persian though.

Rather than crumbling them in, put one in a spoon then place the back of another spoon against it. Bit of a push and a grinding motion & most pills can be ground down to powder. Lik E Lix is a good thing to put them in, or they may dissolve in a strong flavoured cat soup if you warm it slightly.

Of course Tobias won't touch lik e lix and can tell there's almost any powder in food however well crushed & mixed in!

Try lifting her up and putting her on a large towel on a counter top (laid out ready for her), wrap her quickly making sure she’s facing away from you (she will try and back out of the towel so use your body to block her rear end until it’s wrapped). Once she’s tightly secured you can use both hands to place or squirt meds into the side of her mouth e.g using pill popper. Once it’s in, hold her mouth shut, and squirt some water in between her teeth to encourag3 her to swallow. Easier said than done I know 😂

Crush the pills snd mix into a small knob of butter. Smear butter onto top of front paws. Cat will lick it off because they hate being dirty. They'll obviously be plotting your downfall for a while but it usually works.

Mine refused every option I tried (and he's 8kg of mostly muscle so is stronger than me so I can't hold him down for the usual pill methods).

I tried crushing them into wet food which was refused, but crushing them into a licky lix worked wonders and he polished the bowl off and begged for more. He was quite annoyed when the course ended and his 3x a day "treats" stopped.

Thanks all, I've had success with the frusemide in lick e lix but she's sussed the antibiotics! Back to the vet today so hopefully things will improve. Thanks everyone for your valuable advice!

Harry was on frusemide and we had the liquid version and put it in his food.

With one of the cats, the only thing that worked was mixing the crushed tablet (crushed to powder with a pestle and mortar) into Primula cheese.
He could find it in anything else, but loved this stuff!