Compounding medicine

Hi there,

That seems like a lot of unnecessary bother to go to? I give my cat 1 capsule of Transfer Factor Plus Tri-Factor a day (have since October) and here's what I do....

I, too, have felt uncomfortable giving such a large capsule (I have a couple of times, following that with about 3-4 cc's water I squirt into his mouth - he's a big cat at 18 lbs and very easy to pill.....but I still feel nervous about it).

I did initially try opening up the capsule and mixing half of it with some of the gravy from his canned cat food. I found the powder didn't really mix all that well.

Now what I do is, I bought some empty gelatin capsules from iHerb.com (size #1). I empty half of a TF capsule into an empty capsule........then I'm left with the original TF capsule that contains half of the powder....but of course it's still a big capsule...........so then I make sure the remaining powder in this capsule is settled to the bottom of it..........and I take a pair of scissors and snip the excess part of the capsule........it kind of doesn't cut too cleanly but I'm then able to carefully put the top of the capsule back onto the bottom.....and presto, the capsule is much smaller LOL

If you don't want to buy broth, what you can also do is this (assuming you feed canned food?)....after you open a can of canned food, add a little water to the empty can, just a smidgen..........then swirl it around IN the can. Now that water is sort of flavored by the canned food (there's usually some residual food in the can). Take your syringe and draw up about 2 cc's of it.

then, with your finger over the end of the syringe (the part that goes into the mouth), pull the plunger out of the syringe.........empty half of the capsule INTO the barrel of the syringe, then put the plunger part gently over that barrel end, tip it upside down so the water and powder settle, and push the plunger in....pushing out any air........then shake it real good so the powder mixes with the water. I started out doing it this way but did find the powder didn't mix too well.

If you do decide to use the chicken broth, sorry I'm not sure about that. Guess you'll have just to read the label...........ensure it's "low sodium" and that it doesn't contain onion powder/onions or garlic powder/garlic. I know Campbell's sells broth in those tetra-pak thingies, in the soup aisle......they do have a low sodium version...but I don't know about the other things in it.

To add, have you tried just opening up the capsule and sprinkling it onto the canned food and mixing it up real well? It has no taste to it apparently and that's how most give it. I never ever tried that way because I have 4 other cats and the 5 of them (including the one who gets it) all eat off the same big plate so it would be impossible to ensure HE got it all. But you might want to try it? Would sure make it simple if you could give it that way!