Giving medicine

[emmab]

I am having problems giving Gémo her flea and worming each time. It doesn't get any easier over time and have gone from giving her tablets for worming to spot on Profender as this is the only way we can at least give her some medication each time. Obviously we do them both within days of each other but it is always a trauma for her. We have tried the subtle method but she isn't daft and even wrapping her in a towel method is a disaster. She is very strong and draws blood. Even the vet has struggled to give her an annual injection. I am sure I am not alone but can anyone help please? The other cat is fine with spot on treatments although is wary of tablets. She is a lovely cat. I am making her sound a little terror, but being a female is slightly more twitchy and highly strung than her brother, which makes this a hard thing to do each month. Thanks in advance.

[Crewella]

You can now also get Broadline, which is a spot-on that treats both fleas and worms in one. That might help.

[emmab]

Yes thanks. The problem is not the spot on. it's holding the cat securely in the first place. Towels etc don't seem to work terribly well. All the You Tube videos seem to use such well behaved cats and don't seem to offer any techniques on handling the cat to administer the spot on.

[lilynmitz]

Give her a bowl of her favourite food, then while she's distracted, go in with the speed and dexterity of a hawk and get it on her before she knows what's happened! Works with my two.

[Crewella]

I've done the same with hard-to-hold cats - I've avoided holding them altogether and just fired the thing at the back of their necks almost 'in passing' at an opportune moment. You definitely lose something in the accuracy, but you can get most of it in roughly the right area very quickly if you need to!

If they're not too feisty, I kneel on the floor and back them up between my knees to do it - sometimes it helps if they still have all four paws on the floor and they panic less.

[meriad]

how often do you flea and worm your cat? I'll put hand up and admit that I don't do mine at the recommended monthly interval because it's not needed and I don't believe in putting a poison onto a body if it's not needed; my cats don't have fleas. I worm twice a year because they will hunt if they can, but flea treatment I don't worry about... I've lived in my current flat for 8 years and I've only ever seen one flea which I am quite certain did not come from my cats.

I have six cats of which four are treated maybe once a year, if that - the other two are more regular because of mites / potential flea allergy.

Basically what I'm trying to say in a very round about way is - unless your cat is riddled with fleas stop treating monthly and give yourself and your cat a break

[lilynmitz]

I do mine when I remember, which is usually about 3 or 4 times a year. We've had fleas probably about 4 times in the last 25 years.

[randall]

The other cat is fine with spot on treatments although is wary of tablets..

Long ago I bought an excellent pill crusher that grinds pills to a fine powder that I could then mix into yoghurt (the cat's favorite) or strong tasting fishy cat food. It's really just a small hand mill, twisting two surfaces against each other, with the pill securely inbetween.

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You can achieve the same results with a mortar/pestle or even just a hammer/mallet (put the pill into the corner of a strong envelope or folded up craft paper).

I also "spot treat" the cats while they are eating their favorite food. I do a few "dummy" runs a couple of times before, without the medicine, so that the cat has an uneventful experience of me petting and poking between the shoulders while they are eating. I even touch them with something like an empty applicator. Then I zap them on the 3rd or 4th time with the real stuff.

[emmab]

Thanks for all your help. She senses I am going to do this, so doing this when she is distracted is near on impossible. She is very clever and is quite a wriggler and very strong. I worm her every 6 weeks or so. She is currently having quite a number of birds a day and her brother has had worms in the past so am very aware to the fact we need to keep it up. They go into a cattery as well from time to time and they are very hot on flea and worm treatments. I have also tried putting the tablets that I originally used into a special putty from the vets and this failed to work. She also spits out the tablet if I try using cheese etc. Some tablets are not designed to be crushed and are not affective so ia difficult, that is why I have tried to go on to Spot on treatments. If I used to try and administer tablets she used her sharpest of claws to let me know she wasn't happy. I am really stu'ped on this one. I tend to just fire the pippette onto her coat as near to the skin as possible on the back of the neck but I am really unsure much of it is getting any where near her skin. Ven the vet has struggled to give her her annual vaccinations. I hope she mellows down with age!

[Lilith]

If anyone needs to powder up a tablet, you can also use 2 teaspoons - just slot them together, errm, spoon fashion lol, with the pill in between, hold the handles with one hand and hold the bowls with the other, pressing hard with the thumb and wiggling the bowls gently...always a good thing to hold them above a plate of course if you're clumsy like me

Good luck with Gemo, Emma

[Mollysmummy]

Ours are the same, Molly just knows when there's a pill in her food even if it's crushed, and goes mad if we try spot on. Kevin seems almost like he's reacting to spot on treatments; he gets extremely stressed and agitated for a couple of hours afterwards, then licks all he can off and vomits. Every time!

We now use Programme flea injections as they're only needed every 6 months, and could coincide with annual boosters to minimise vet trips etc.
in terms of worming treatments we only treat one of our 2 cats as one is strictly an indoor cat. Molly goes out and catches moths but nothing more. We treat her sporadically for worms and just keep an eye on her bowel movements to check she's not picked anything up.

Unless your cat is a big outdoors fan and catches mice/birds etc, I really don't think treatments need to be bang on monthly especially if it stresses them out.

[meriad]

I worm her every 6 weeks or so.

Gosh that seems quite a bit to me? What do you use and do you get it from the vet? Most worm treatments I thought were only to be given every 3 months?

[Crewella]

I think it depends on the treatment, Broadline for example is monthly and treats both fleas and worms together. Now that Daz is hunting so much I do tend to worm him more often, expecially in the summer.

[snootycow]

Have you asked the vet about Milbemax worming tablets?
They have a 'tasty' coating, my two just eat them like they're getting a treat! It's quite amazing really, this wasn't available when we had our previous boy and it was a nightmare getting pills of any kind in to him. I was very pleasantly surprised

[emmab]

I try and increase the worming as they are real hunters and have seen worms and the vet seemed happy with the timescale between each treatment. I am not sure they fully receive the full dose because of the issues I have administering the treatment. Fleas I treat less. Also, the cattery requires up to date worming.