Arghhhh has Lick-e-Lix changed??

[SorePawBoy]

We were getting on very well, dosing my nearly 2 yo with his loxicom and antibiotic pills for a minor back foot wound. Crushing the pills and mixing with some Lick-e-lix, and doing the Loxicom in the same way. I was giving those meds separately - DH gave the loxicom and the antibiotic in the same dish of Lick-e-lix yesterday and the cat promptly threw both up! We were down to our last couple of doses of antibiotics and I was careful this morning not to mix the meds. But he had the antibiotics in the licky-e-lix and then a bit of cat food - and threw it up!

I just bought some new Lick-e-lix and it's got different packaging. Annoyingly I don't think I have the box from the last batch to compare ingredients with but I wonder if it's different in some way? He'd been absolutely fine with his meds in the old batch for over a week. And this morning he hasn't yet had his loxicom dose, which I know can sometimes cause stomach upset, so it's not that. He was in the car for an early morning vet check-up just before this, but that wasn't the case yesterday. I suspect the lick-e-lix which is the only thing that might have changed.

Anyone else having issues with new-packaging Lick-e-lix? How the feck am I going to get meds into him now??

His paw wound is healing up really nicely (he'd rolled a big flap of skin back, must have caught it under something) and had a hard scab that was shrinking and looking better every day. The vet this morning pulled the bloody scab OFF, to check underneath for infection!! So ironically, right when I've come to the end of the antibiotics, it's raw again.

yes they are different the tubes are now only 10g not 15g and my cats have not enjoyed it as much and they left some. It’s so annoying when this happened!

My old boy hasn't had any trouble with new packaging lick-e-liks but he was very offended by the new webbox snackibles and looked at me like I was trying to poison him. And he eats anything. He batted them out of the way.

Dreamies do a creamy treat that is highly prized in this house, more than lick e liks, you could try those?

Not that I've noticed. My cat loves loxicom. She was on it after surgery and would come running across the room when she saw the syringe meowing her head off 😂
You could try just offering it to him to lick? Pills are a different story, maybe try hiding in some wet food warmed up, the aroma hides the smell of the pills!

Churu do a lik-e-lix equivalent which mine adore. Currently I've just been buying the basic chicken variety box, but looking deeper looks like they do sooo many flavours, anti hairball ones, skin & coat conditioning formula etc. They actually call them Churu sticks for some reason, but it's the creamy stuff in a tube.

Catit also make one that's available on Amazon that looks very cheap, and I think even Pets at Home have brought out their own! Case of get one pack of each & see which they prefer

Shrinkflation! Penelope is outraged at being shortchanged

This. My parents cat absolutely adores his loxicom.

Try the cheap shops like The Range, B&M etc for the old style boxes as they sometimes get a supply of them (presumably from the likes of Asda or direct from manufacturers who are wantimg rid) so they can sell the new stuff.

Swapped to the new felix version because of this. Cat mutiny otherwise.

My cat likes the Dreamies version. Perhaps try another brand.

Thanks! I've only fairly recently started buying this stuff (only to give meds with, hence we had some older tubes left from our previous late-lamented cat) and had no idea other cat food companies made some! I'll give them a go.

I think it's quite a recent thing. Only used to see lik-e-lix then suddenly there's other brands everywhere.

This is annoying and even more so if they have changed.

They have a box of 50 15g ones on Amazon still.

Have you tried marmite? Crush the tablets into a bit and they might go for that? That's what we used before sometimes.

If push comes to shove, does the medication have to be mixed with food? If not, get the vet to show you how to put the pill in the cat's mouth. I had to do it recently when my cat was not eating anything and my dh, who is expert at putting pills in animals, was away. I never thought I would manage it on my own, but I actually did, eventually.

Usually, pate works quite well, but it sounds like lik e lix was your go to option so maybe you've tried other foods?

Lidl and Aldi do them too. Lidl a box of 7 x 16g, Aldi 5 x 15g. My cats love both.

The B&M Lickelix also suffers from shrinkflation, you only get 4 tubes.

Fwiw I've previously boiled up some chicken and prawns, blended it with a small amount of the boiled water and yoghurt. Freeze in an ice cube tray, defrost 1 a day. Cat loved it.

Ours will accept the Lidl brand just as well as they do lick-e-lix. Our boy cat loves butter and cheese so tablets crushed in a bit of soft butter or grated chedder is another trick.

Have you tried just doing the loxicom as is? Our oldest cat is on it long-term for arthritis and comes running when I get it out - I even have to fight our other cats from stealing it 😂

Same, my cat thinks it’s a great treat
not so much his gabapentin

Catit creamy treats are as good as ever!

Please see the attached!

But more seriously, it takes 2 of us to even catch one of my cats and that's after we've managed to trick him into having some gabapentin.

OMG that is hilarious! 😂And, in parts, deadly accurate. But have you seen a vet do it? Even my boy who becomes a feral spitting, hissing tiger when at the vets (and can't stand most human touch even at his most relaxed) is powerless to resist the popping of pills when a vet does it. So I always think to myself, these vets weren't born knowing how to handle animals, they had to learn, and if they can learn something, so can I.

But yes, even with my most docile and obliging cat, it did take me 3 separate attempts to get one pill in him.

Even gabapentined up to the nines they have to give Tobias extra sedation to do stuff with him. And seeing he has to have 6 monthly visits now usually with bloods that can be a real pain. He's harder to get a grip on than a hagfish (if you don't know about them, have a Google!)

It’s not the likelix, it’s the meds combination!

My boy was being pumped full of drugs when he was poorly earlier in the year. We were doing the same with the Lox and the antibiotics in likelix and after about 3 days he just started throwing it up. The Lox is quite hard on their stomachs and adding antibiotics to it too makes it harder- our vet said it would be the build up of it in his stomach and stopped the Lox at this point. He also reminded us to only give him meds on s full stomach so he was basically getting likelix as a dessert!

We switched to gabapentin instead which is less anti-inflammatory but a good relaxant and squirt directly into his mouth- it’s very good.

Try felix cat soup stinky and strong i managed to get liquid antibiotics into my reluctant cat this way

Thanks everyone! Forgot to check back to this thread.

Shit really does happen - now his tiny littermate brother has got a suspected broken tail and is currently in the vet's awaiting sedation so they can have a proper look, x-ray etc. He'll be on Loxicom too but seems to tolerate Lick-e-lix. However, bloody Sore Paw cat managed to burst his scab whilst frolicking outside yesterday (I swear it's like they made a pact to make this half-term as enjoyable for me as possible) and so I tried him with some loxicom mixed with barely a teaspoonful of lick-e-lix - and he threw everything he'd eaten yesterday evening up. I haven't been able to source alternative creamy pastes locally (not the Felix or Dreamies ones anyway) but I'll have to redouble my efforts. Amazon mostly has huge bulk boxes and I don't want to buy masses of it if it's another dud.

Anyway, I'm really grateful for all these suggestions.