Is it safe to give a cat a few grains of sugar with medication

Hi all,

I'm new to the Cat Site, but our cat is elderly. Teela is 16 and she's been diagnosed with a heart murmur and hypertropic cardiomyopathy (causing a thickened left ventricle). She's been prescribed benazepril (an ACE inhibitor) and frusemide (a diuretic).

 Teela's taking the Frusemide, but I think the benazepril must be very bitter, because no matter what we put it in (cheese, cream cheese, margarine, even tuna) she detects it, and she won't have more than the first nibble. I worry that her heart murmur won't be properly managed if she won't take her ACE inhibitor. I don't want to have to resort to more forceful methods until I've tried everything else (she's never taken medication before; and she's only been our cat for a few years - she belonged to a relative who passed on).

 Yesterday, I tried giving her a small treat of cheese with a few grains of sugar (precisely eight grains, mixed in with her pill). For the first time, she actually took her pill. But now I'm concerned.

  Is it safe to continue giving this small amount of sugar with her benazepril? Otherwise, I worry she won't take it, but I don't want to do her further harm. We've had cats before, but never a senior kitty-zen, nor a cat with health problems. I love this little tabby and I want her to have as long and healthy a life as possible.

 Thank you in advance,

 Teela's mummy

P.S. It's probably obvious from the message above, but I've been grinding Teela's medication to powder to make it easier to hide.

Additionally (and I know you shouldn't postscript a postscript, but the thought just occurred to me), if it is unsafe to give a cat even a few grains of sugar, can you suggest any ways to safely hide to taste of the ACE inhibitor our clever cat is constantly detecting?

Cats don't really have a "sweet tooth", and sugar isn't good for her, so I'd try to find something else. Have you tried hiding the ACE inhibitor in pill pockets, chewy cat treats/sticks, liverwurst, whipped cream or fish paste? Do you have the flavored pills? Our last cat had HCM, and the only pill he readily took was the inhibitor because it was chicken flavored. He would eat it like a treat. It was the "dog" pill, and I used to cut it to size for him.

Hi Jcat,

Thank you for your answer. I'll ask the vet about the flavoured pills, but we're in the UK, and I think they just use human meds in smaller doses over here. Ditto, the liverwurst. A quick check around supermarkets online has revealed no stockists. I've made cheese parcels with the pill hidden in. If the pill's ground-down, she barely touches it, if the pill's whole, she spits the pill out (clever, if slightly devious, little girl). But the fish paste is a good idea (she loves salmon-based food, like most cats), and the whipped cream definitely is a great idea (she's a real cream fiend, given the chance - you should see her when we have trifle, she tries to literally steal it off our plates).

 I should've probably thought of that, but we've never had a sick cat before.

You should actually be able to get the flavored pills in the UK - we live in Germany, so meds are the same or similar. What Jamie got was
Fortekor Flavoured Tablets. Google brings up a number of UK suppliers, with a prescription, of course.

Another thing that might work if you're grinding the pills is cat gravy. I never tried it on Jamie because he'd never liked cat food in gravy, but one of the shelter cats will take his crushed pills in a dollop of gravy on a flat dish. Some TCS members put pills in gelatine capsules from the chemist's to hide the taste.

You can probably get (human) liverwurst from Lidl, and occasionally they have cat liverwurst in a tube, too. Lidl also has soft "cat sticks" you can form around pills. I think the brand is Coshida here, but at any rate it's the Lidl store brand.

teelasmummy I've found a few other things (from zooplus.co.uk, but probably available at pet stores) you could try: Paste with Vitamins & Minerals (scroll down) There's salmon, poultry and liverwurst. Another thing that would be good for mixing with crushed tablets is Vitakraft Cat Liquid Snack with Duck (also available with beef, chicken or salmon).

Jcat,

 Thank you so much for all your help! I'm pleased to report that Teela is taking her pill now. We've found that crushing it and hiding it in cat-gravy and paste (she loves the salmon and beef pastes) hides it well and she takes it without  a problem. We alternate, a new flavour every day, so she won't get bored of the regularity.

 These methods have turned her pill-taking into time for a treat (and we all know how much a cat loves a treat!). And, even better, I still have some methods in reserve, in case she becomes bored with gravy or paste. She's a finicky little puss (aren't they all?)

That's great news!