01/30/2007: "Medication Morsels"

Hey Everybody! Sawyer here, and boy what a week I’ve had. So Wednesday I saw my chance when the techs left a bowl of food unguarded. Score! I scarfed down the yummy canned food. It had a crunchy center, but I was so intent on getting the food in my tummy before they spotted me I didn’t stop to peruse said crunchy object. Well, that’s when all heck broke loose, whohoo! Apparently the crunchy object was a pain medication for a dog. That would have been bad enough, but that medicine interacts with another medicine that I’ve been taking for my allergies. Oops! They really should have warning labels or something.

So long story short, a merry chase ensued, and I was on the losing end of a battle with nasty tasting medicine. They shoved two kinds of nasty tasting liquid down my gullet, then put me in a cage and stood watching me. Suddenly, I felt all queasy and my precious hard-won food all came back up. To add insult to injury, they all cheered and took away my food before I could eat it again (second time’s even better, you know what I’m saying?).

Now as if that wasn’t bad enough, these crazy people stopped my medicine that keeps me from itching because they were afraid I’d get ulcers in my stomach. Well, I got ulcers all right, but in my mouth! My tongue really hurt and even though I’m starving it was torture to eat. So I would run up to my precious food bowl, but have to just look longingly at the food.

My peeps realized my distress and made appropriate noises (except for some who shall remain nameless who said I did this to myself. They know who they are and will find an appropriate present under their desks when they least expect it). They started me on medicine to soothe the ulcers and pain medicine. That has helped a little. They’ve also been giving me soft food that’s easier to eat (and tastier…score!).

So now my team has to give me several medications, and I must say I give them quite a time. HA! In the words of some people here, they brought this on themselves. This experience has got me thinking though, that there has to be a nicer way to give kitties medicine. We’re more finicky than dogs as a rule, so it can be more challenging to get pills into us. To help out with your folks at home, I found some ideas for them from a group that the doctors belong to, the IVAPM (they say that stands for International Veterinary Academy of Pain Management):

1. Remain calm! We cats can sense when you’re worried about something, and it makes us worried.
2. Coat the tablet lightly with butter or margarine to reduce the taste and help it slide down our throats (the doctors here also recommend following any pills or capsules with water to make sure the pill doesn’t stick in our throats).
3. Crush the tablet or open the capsule and mix with our favorite cat food, tuna fish, cream cheese, or other flavored food (check with your doctor first, some medications will be inactivated by doing this).
4. Have tablets placed in gelatin capsules to eliminate a bitter taste.
5. Place tablet inside a favorite treat with a cruncy outer label (example is Pounce hairball treats)
6. Hide tablet or capsule in Pill Pocket (they’re tasty!) or Flavor-doh (I haven’t tried this but it also sounds tasty).
7. Have the medication compounded in a yummy flavored liquid or tasty chewy treat.
8. Obtain a “pill popper” to help get the tablet or capsule into us and save your fingers.

If your people still have trouble (way to go you bad cats!), have them call my people here for help or advice. They’re a sneaky crew, believe me.

Here’s hoping my mouth will feel better soon! Since it’s been hurting I haven’t wanted to groom myself, so I’m looking a little rough. Maybe my peeps here will stop torturing me with medications long enough to brush me a little….

Sawyer