Oral medicine "going down the wrong way"/ending up on lungs?

Is this possible and if so how easy is it to do accidently ?

Leo has 3 different oral meds I have to give, and after doing it the first time, one after the other in quick succession, it made his coughing worse and he didn't seem to improve afterwards.

Now I do each in at least an hour interval to let him lick up any and swallow any still in and around his mouth.

How possible is it that when I give oral medication some of it or all of it ends up on his lungs and not his stomach?

I hold him and pull back his skin gently so that he is "grinning" and his mouth automatically opens and he automatically starts doing the chewing action, then my partner squirts the medication in with a suringe. This is how we were shown to do this.

Never thought anything of it until the first time we gave all 3 one after another

I used to just give one straight after the other but I only had small mls and I did it slowly. Are you squirting it in at the side of the mouth and not straight down? That's what we were advised.

i worried about this but was told it's harder to do than you think. aslong as you do it as you have been shown, and direct the meds to the sides and not the back then you should be fine, and go at their pace aswell. my chesney piggy preferred less at a time than you can give, and he needed a little break inbetween aswell. :wave:

eta: i watched a tutorial on youtube from a rabbit rescue and they made it look so easy!

OMG it is VERY easy to do and VERY, VERY dangerous if it happens. This happened to me once and it was a terrible, terrible shock, and I knew that Roger was going to die before I could get him to the vets. Thank god I'm a Paramedic, because I didn't know if it would work or not, but with my bunny dying in front of me, I just picked him up and started giving him mouth to mouth, and managed to force the fluid out of his lungs so that he was able to breathe properly again. I actually heard the fluid shift, and that's when I knew he was out of danger, but he was still rushed to the vets for oxygen therapy, but was fine a couple of hours later. It is imperative that you only use a 1ml syringe, and go in from the side at the corner of the mouth, and bunny needs to be upright as well. My near disaster was because I tried to open his mouth and had the syringe right at the front, not only is there then the risk of bunny aspirating the contents, but also of biting down on the syringe and breaking it, potentially with tiny sharp pieces flying into his mouth. A 1ml syringe can gently slide very easily into bunnies mouths without causing any distress whatsoever. I was so lucky the mouth to mouth worked, I could never have forgiven myself for in effect causing Rogers death.