pianostar
2025-02-11 09:27:07
The mother lode! Jackpot! Bingo!I have a 12-year-old kitty who has a chronic upper respiratory thing going on. One vet said he had a clogged tear duct (he doesn’t), another vet said he had a chronic herpes viral infection (he doesn’t). His sneezing, congestion, itching, hair pulling, and runny eyes seem worse when he’s stressed (and he’s what they euphemistically call a “hyper-vigilant†kitty, so he’s stressed a lot), when there are seasonal allergens going on, or when I use scented litter or chemical cleaners. My latest vet, who has bad allergies himself, suggested a daily 10 mg Zyrtek tablet, which he takes himself and gives to two of his own dogs daily.So I set about to medicate my kitty daily and thereby cause him to hate me. I would put a towel in the kitchen sink and then go chasing him around the house. As soon as he saw the towel go into the sink and the kitchen light go on, he commenced to run and hide. These are the things I have tried unsuccessfully: shoving the pill down his throat with my finger; shoving the pill down his throat with a piller that’s about a foot too long; putting the crushed pill in wet food (he wasn’t interested); putting the crushed pill in peanut butter (too sticky and thick); putting the crushed pill in his daily Cat Lax, a hairball-prevention gel that he likes (the pill particles just stick to the outside of it); and putting the crushed pill in a bacon-flavored pill masker the consistency of Play-Doh (too hard to chew, and cats don’t eat bacon, anyway).So I decided that life was too short for both of us to be that stressed, and I gave up. Then his sinuses got infected, he started slinging mucus from his nose all over the place, sneezing in my face when he came to snuggle, pulling the hair off his tummy, and hacking, and I realized I had to take him to the vet and get him some antibiotics. And I felt guilty.Since the liquid antibiotics were not too difficult to administer, I made the comment to the vet that I wished the Zyrtek came in liquid form (they do make a fruit-flavored syrup for children, but I would have had to give him a large amount of it). The vet suggested that maybe one of the compounding pharmacies could make it, and I was very excited, despite the $35 monthly cost. But the compounded liquid is in oil, which meant that it was messy, turned to sludge, and clogged the syringe. I asked the pharmacy if they could compound it in water, which they can, but then it would only last for 14 days, so the monthly cost would be $70!I started reading piller reviews again and bought some syringe pillers (you have to buy a dozen to get one) that you put water into with the pill at the end. Before I could get it into his mouth, the pill fell out. (There is no piller that gets very good reviews.) In desperation, I came back to Amazon and started doing searches on words like “medication.â€Then I came across this! OMG! This stuff is life-changing! His attitude has changed from, “Mom, why do you hate me?†to “Mom, when’s my next pill?â€This stuff is about the consistency of pudding (and very stinky), so a crushed pill completely dissolves into it instead of just sticking to it. (I am still not sure he wouldn’t just eat around the pill if I didn’t crush it.) I can get about three pills’ worth out of one foil tube. When I open a new tube, I squeeze it into a mini Tupperware container, then scoop out about one-third of it with a little cosmetic “paddle,†dissolve the crushed pill into the stuff, mix it around, while he is anxiously waiting outside the bathroom door. (In fact, most of the time, I can't even get him to wait outside, now that he knows the routine.) Then it is down the hatch in about two licks! And I refrigerate the remainder in the Tupperware container. The little tube is not the most convenient thing to squeeze out for every three pills, but it's worth the effort.Here’s the pill crusher I got, which works quite well: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XCB7SF3/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1One week later:This would all be lovely, but after 8 days, my kitty decided he didn't like it anymore! Cats!