Best way to give Metronidazole pills?

Hey everyone, I'm having trouble getting my boy Tater Tot to take his Metronidazole. I've been using a pill shooter but that seems to get his gag reflex going and he ends up throwing up all of his medicine about a minute after giving him his last meds (all are syringed in except for the metro). How do you give your cats metro? Tater needs it for his IBD and he's been producing bloody stools. The vet said he needs a 10 day course. I'm dreading this.

Have you tried liverwurst? That's usually the easiest way to get a pill into a cat. Make several tiny balls of it and stick the (cut?) pill in one or two and hope he gobbles everything.

Putting the pill in a gelatine capsule also makes it go down much easier, especially if you get chicken or beef flavored ones. You can wrap a towel around Tater's shoulders to prevent scratches, then open his mouth and put the capsule far back on his tongue.

My method of pilling a cat involves sneaking the pill into a small amount of tuna, or wet food, or whatever the cat likes best. They wolf it down so fast they don't notice the pill.

Banana Queen said:

My method of pilling a cat involves sneaking the pill into a small amount of tuna, or wet food, or whatever the cat likes best. They wolf it down so fast they don't notice the pill.

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Metro is a very bitter pill (even says so on the prescription bottle), so masking it in food is almost impossible. I was thinking of wrapping something around it so I could get it to the back of his throat without him tasting it.

We just got 2 cats from cat shelter and they have Giardia, so we have give Metronidazole as well - the cats HATE it, and we have the scars to prove it. Our vet recommended to coat the tablet with cheese and put it into the freezer until it forms a hard shell, then dip it in liverwurst. Worked great for one of our cats, but the other still spit it out. We now use a pill gun on but and it works great. Maybe the cheese trick will work for your cats.

Well here's what I tried and it seems to work pretty well. I take a tiny bit of real butter and coat the pill with it. Then when I pill gun him it (usually) slides down his throat (when I get a good aim). Even when I miss and he spits it out there's enough butter on it so he doesn't taste it when I pill him again.

It just takes a bare smidgen of butter.

We treated our 3 cats recently with metronidazole suspension....maybe easier to syringe in him.  The suspension had to be ordered from a compounding pharmacy.

Isobel said:

We treated our 3 cats recently with metronidazole suspension....maybe easier to syringe in him.  The suspension had to be ordered from a compounding pharmacy.

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I thought about getting it compounded but I can't imagine something so bitter being covered up in a suspension very well. He's already on Buspirone which tastes terrible to him. I'm wary of giving him a second bitter suspension. He is definitely easier to syringe though.

Yeah...they were not too fond of it despite them telling me it was tuna flavored.  :-(  Syringing is just much easier with my girls and between the 3 of them we were doing 15 syringes a day!  It's like running a vet clinic around here!

Good luck with your baby.  If syringing is less stressful for him may want to give it a go.

I have tried using the piller and it's a real struggle he spits it out every time. I put it in his food, he wouldn't even touch it. I'm exhausted chasing him around trying to give him a pill. My oldest son Harry even holds him while I use the piller. He spits it out.I just want to cry because I think my car hates me it's awful.

I give my cat an allergy pill that gets cut in half then I give him half. (I am going to talk to my vet about getting his medicine in capsule form.) I'm kinda mean to my cat since he struggles a bit trying to get away. I kinda hold him down a bit with my elbow/arm and use that hand to open his mouth. Then shove the pill down his throat, hold his mouth closed and blow gently on his nose (or as the article I said across their nose) and he swallows it. I then give him treats and love. Best of luck

I order the gel capsules from thriving pets. If you call them and tell them what medication you are using them for they can tell you what size gel capsule will work best. I just coat the gel capsule with some butter, freeze it for about 5 minutes to firm it up and can give it down the hatch. You can also use pill pockets - typically you have to tear off a piece because the full size is way too big for a cat. The key with pill pockets is you NEVER touch the pill pocket with the hand that touched the pill so I usually get the pill ready and wash my hands. Then you make a flat piece of pill pocket and you put that in your hand and take a tweezer and put the pill in the pill pocket and then close up the sides to make a ball. If they smell the pill on the pill pocket - they won't touch it.

I just talked to the vet and he has taken Neo off the Flagyl. He only had the one lose stool about a week ago. And the stress of just giving it to him, he has not been eating as much, so we're just going to keep an eye on him. Thank you for all your advice. Now we need to get his appetite back and gain some weight. If you guys have ideas on putting on weight, the vet suggested kitten food to his diet. Which I thought was off because he's 10 years old. again thank you.

I know you got this solved, but if it ever happens again....What I have always done with my horses and cats that had to have pills, was to crush the pill into powder, add some filtered water then syringe it in. They make these pill crusher things. Basically a big syringe with a grating end on the plunger part. After it's crushed, just transfer to smaller syringe. Works great.

Kitten food has a higher calorie content so it will help your cat gain weight ... funny I'm limiting treats on my guys to try to slim them down also if your cat is older and if you can give him 3-5 wet food meals a day and see if that fluffs him up (they make kitten wet food..... sometimes with older teeth the cats have problems eating dry food.)

Actually, we caught Tater's IBS in time. He's actually on a diet to lose weight (he's 20 pounds!!!).

Good news: To get around his gag reflex (which has gotten much better, thank goodness, since I originally posted this in November 2016), I now use vegetable capsules to put pills in. Then, I just put a tiny, little layer of butter around the capsule and use safe piller to pop it down his throat. I follow that up with a freeze-dried treat (lately it's been turke). This has made the process so easy!! Especially since he knows he gets a treat after.

Bad news: Tater got neurotoxicity from the metro, so we had to take him off of it and hope his neuroticity got better as well as his tummy.

More bad news: he's still showing signs of neuroticity even though he's been off of metro for at least 4 months. But I can never catch it on video, so vet and I are unsure of what to do.

But more good news: his poops have returned to normal. He is pretty healthy for the moment (knock on wood) and back to being his super naughty (a.k.a. funny and mischievous) self.

So, for right now we're in a holding pattern and I'm fine with that.

Thanks all!!!

danteshuman said:

Kitten food has a higher calorie content so it will help your cat gain weight ... funny I'm limiting treats on my guys to try to slim them down also if your cat is older and if you can give him 3-5 wet food meals a day and see if that fluffs him up (they make kitten wet food..... sometimes with older teeth the cats have problems eating dry food.)

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Ugh...I once tasted metronidazole and it was nasty. We have had the best results with Pill Pockets. But, you don't need to use the whole thing...just rip off enough to cover the pill. What we do is give our cat a few empty pieces first and then sneak one in with the pill in it and then give a few more empty ones.

Good luck!

Lol! Tried those. Tater decided to bite into it and after that he won't even try eating an empty pill pocket as a treat. The piller and vegetables capsules with butter on them seem to work best with him, especially when accompanied by a tasty treat. Lol

PennyCatMom said:

Ugh...I once tasted metronidazole and it was nasty. We have had the best results with Pill Pockets. But, you don't need to use the whole thing...just rip off enough to cover the pill. What we do is give our cat a few empty pieces first and then sneak one in with the pill in it and then give a few more empty ones.

Good luck!

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