Ruining food with meds

[Juniper_Junebug]

I think my kitty has stopped eating a lickable treat I had been using for liquid meds. It worked so well for Clavamox, and my kitty ate the first dose of Metronidazole, but then started refusing the treat even without the meds. Presumably, the Metro must have made her feel bad (bc if it had been the taste alone, which I know is bitter, she wouldn't have finished the first dose).

How long will her aversion to the treat last? Will I keep having to find new lickable treats each time I have to medicate her (three times since October)? I'm definitely taking the hint not to hide meds in her normal food....

 

[nurseangel]

Oh dear. I can't say how long she will refuse the treats as she has grown wise to what's going on. I may be wrong, but I think cats remember up to ten years? (I know we took ours off Tempations for two years and then we decided a little Christmas gift wouldn't hurt. They knew before we even shook the bag. They've been back off the wagon ever since.) We have Daisy's heart medicine (Lasix) called into a compounding pharmacy and DH gives it to her with a syringe. They add a tuna flavor and she takes it pretty well. As well as a cat will take meds, I suppose. Daisy has to take twice a day. I would check with the vet as to how long the Flagyl stays good in liquid form. Since she doesn't have to take it all the time, it might be best to have the vet mark a syringe as to the amount to draw up and have a script called in to a pharmacy that can add flavor to it. Just a suggestion, but that way it may not ruin her favorite treats. A syringe might also be a good choice even if you can't get the meds flavored. If she will tolerate taking meds by syringe and not fight or foam. That all depends on the cat and med. DH is quite the good nurse, though he is not a nurse at all. He is the one who medicates Daisy rather than me, an actual nurse. After a dose, she gets a ton of attention and doesn't seem to mind.

 

[Tagrendy]

Why not give the meds on their own. She won't like it, but you can wait a minute or 2 and then give the treat, she will learn to tolerate the med part. It's not the same, but I used the same logic to make my cat tolerate teeth brushing.

 

[FeebysOwner]

If she is eating the meds in the food - lickable treats or otherwise - and for some reason the Metro is making her feel bad afterward, I sincerely doubt that she is able to connect the food with the Metro and thinks that food is what is making her feel bad.

I would try other lickable foods and see what happens. I have used Applaws, Wholehearted, Inaba Churu, Tiki Cat Stix or Mousse, and Vitakraft to get Feeby to eat her meds. I never give one of those more than two times in a row before I switch out to another one.

How is she eating otherwise? Will she eat other food without the meds in them over and over again without issue? If so, then ask the vet about using something other than Metro in case it is upsetting her stomach.

 

[Juniper_Junebug]

How is she eating otherwise? Will she eat other food without the meds in them over and over again without issue? If so, then ask the vet about using something other than Metro in case it is upsetting her stomach.

She doesn't seem to be a picky eater. She eats the same three varieties of canned food all the time and never quit a food before. She loves Inaba Churu, so I've been using that for her Panacur, but I'm worried if every time she has a bad medicine experience, I need to find a new treat.

I'm inclined to keep her on the Metro, since she hasn't been throwing up (she did throw up with the Clavamox) and the Panacur alone didn't take care of the giardia last time. But I'll know, for next time, to seek out a compounding pharmacy for Metro.

 

[Juniper_Junebug]

Why not give the meds on their own. She won't like it, but you can wait a minute or 2 and then give the treat, she will learn to tolerate the med part. It's not the same, but I used the same logic to make my cat tolerate teeth brushing.

I'm trying that now. She is hard to restrain (the last time we went to the vet, the tech made a big thing about how good she is at wriggling out of a hold or burrito), and she foams it up some, but it seems like the best I can do for now. I've been rewarding her with the mother of all treats, tinned mackerel.

 

[Juniper_Junebug]

Happy to report that Juno finished the full course of Metro (and Panacur) like a champ. It seems to have given her a mix of diarrhea (worse than her usual loose stools) and constipation (or at least, straining sometimes with no result). But she eventually started resisting the syringe less. I also started following each dose immediately with a squirt of soupy food to get rid of the taste.

(NB: I would have liked to have a second syringe for that, instead of having to load the original one again, but my pharmacy didn't have any syringes. So now I know to sanitize this syringe and save it for next time).