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Giving medication

C

Coineanach

Wise Old Thumper
Is turning into a nightmare. She has five tabs a day (morning and night) and is outwitting us at every turn. We hide them in food, juice, whole, crushed, plonk them in her mouth, and she either refuses, eats round the bit with the tab in, spits it out or bites.

We're now having to pin her down and force the meds in, it takes forever and stresses everyone out :( As she has heart problems we could do without the stress, but need to get the meds into her.

Any ideas? I had a search but couldn't find anything.
 
Enalapril, furosemide and pimobendan (vedmedin). I did think about injecting but it would need to be done twice a day and I don't know anything about injecting personally. Sure the vet could teach me though.
 
I'd definitely opt for injections if at all possible

Meantime, can you crush the tabs and add a bit of fruit flavoured water to make a solution. You only need about 0.5ml water and you can administer the dose directly into her mouth using a 1ml syringe.
 
Do you know if the above are all injectable Jane?

We did syringe them into her for a while but she clicked pretty quickly and started avoiding the syringe, even when we pin her between knees to keep her still. When we get it in, she gets some in then lets it dribble out :? We got away with it in recovery food but have run out, I was going to try making my own today.

She will tolerate the furosemide and enalapril but HATES the pimobendan.
 
Try crushing them in ella's kitchen organic baby food- the banana and apple flavour. It tasty to most rabbits and she may, hopefully, lap it up.
 
Thank you halfpenny and JJ, we have tried baby food. She laps it up then realises it has something in and ignores the rest. We tried her on carrot and I think pear? and the same thing happened. I'll get some of the nana/apple one and the spinach and see if the stronger tastes mask it.

She must have some cracking taste buds because I don't think I could taste my meds in baby food, and they're disgusting!
 
Bump.

Reading back, I sound a bit defeatist :lol: I'm not, I'm just running out of ideas. If it was anything else I would just cram it into her but I really don't want to put the extra stress on her already broken heart. :(
 
my vet used to make the meds into a liquid and i would syringe them in with a piece of fruit to beg forgiveness afterwards, on a good day i would end up crying cus pearl fought me so bad, on a bad day i would end up in tears cus she had no fight left.. still a nightmare but id have never been able to do injections on my own. i was having to give 4 syringed meds a few times aday and she always forgave me :love:
 
We tried the banana and apple ella's kitchen food today, she licked it off the back of a spoon but the minute it had meds in she completely blanked it. Ended up having to syringe the mix into her but she hated it and got so stressed we had to leave half of it. I'm just away to do it again now. :(

I think we're going to have to go for injections, she gets herself in such a state and starts making 'clicking' noises with her breathing which is really worrying me. Tried to phone the vet today but they shut earlier than I thought. Will phone on Monday and ask about them being prepared for injection.
 
No :( It was the practice manager who emailed back, and said she'd spoken to the vet. So I'm assuming there were no alternatives suggested.

I am gutted, tbh.
 
If it were me I'd book an appointment and take her in with the vet i trusted most, and sit there and explain what's going on, the stress it's putting on her and her heart and not leave until some solution was come up with (it's always worked for me in the past) but you do have to be a bit pushy and forward with it.
 
Chipmunk_K said:
If it were me I'd book an appointment and take her in with the vet i trusted most, and sit there and explain what's going on, the stress it's putting on her and her heart and not leave until some solution was come up with (it's always worked for me in the past) but you do have to be a bit pushy and forward with it.
Click to expand...

I agree with this, it doesn't really seem possible for you to carry on the way you're going with the poor wee soul.:(
 
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