If you have a really food-motivated cat, you may be able to crush certain medications and hide them in canned food. I often recommend that you don't feed them the whole meal with that medication in there. Just give them a little dollop of that. Also, you want to give that to them when they're hungry, not when they're full, obviously, so they're more apt to eat all of it. If they're not food motivated, then you may be able to administer it through a suspension. Certain medications can be in liquid form. If it’s appropriate, we may talk about a prescription food they can eat and not have to give them a pill or medicine.

But we can also help you or teach you how to give your cat medication. If it's a pill, we can show you how to pill a cat. It's always nice to have a partner to help you do that—one to hold and one to give the pill. And you want to do it when they're not paying attention and surprise them. And to save your fingers, they make pillers, which are little extensions. And that would help facilitate getting the pill in the back of the throat.

There are different types of medication and many different delivery mechanisms. And so specifically, medication for pain might be Tramadol, which we often give what we call transdermally, which means it's absorbed through the skin. And so if you think about a cat, the one area that they really can't lick directly is the inside of their ear, and it's relatively hairless, so with very thin hair. And so that would be one area of pain medication for cats. Or we may give something in the cheek pouch that is absorbed through the mucus membranes. We may also use K-laser therapy. That is not a direct prescription medication, but it also can help dramatically with pain control.

That's a great question. I'll answer that by saying cats are sensitive to many medications. As I stated with the dogs, diphenhydramine, Benadryl, is a pretty benign and safe medication. Still, I would always recommend that you consult with your veterinarian to ensure you're treating appropriately and get the proper response from that treatment. This is particularly true if your cat is already on medication, as the two medications could interact badly.

Our cats are very sensitive to pain medication. And so, we don't recommend it, especially if it's not an NSAID, as Tylenol can be deadly to them. So we would recommend you check with your veterinarian before giving them any kind of pain medication.

For most medications, I would say yes. Even if you are using something common like flea treatment, you want to make sure it's labeled for the cat. When cats are given an inappropriate medication or a dog medication, they can react severely to that.

So cats are a little tricky because, as you can see, they're squirmy. So what can help is having a blanket here. And so you can help to contain their legs a little bit, make them a little less squirmy so that just their head's sticking out, not hurting the cat whatsoever. Still, it does allow you to get a little bit better of a grip on them and kind of help prevent them from squirming around with all those legs and slashing around with their claws.

You should slowly give cats liquid medication. A lot of the liquids are not formulated for cats to like the taste of them. Some of them can foam at the mouth and try to spit them out. So give it to them slowly, making sure they have a nice tasty food afterward or some water to wash it down with will help. And then also ensure that you are keeping your eye on the cat afterward if you're trying to do a pill so that your cat isn't spitting it out to the side of their mouth.

Miss Thing here is not too keen about the food. She's not one to believe us that it's not going to have medication in it. And so you can try doing some cheese or even doing some canned food for those who are more of a fan of food. But if not, you can certainly use a pill popper, as they will not only prevent your cat from hopefully spitting out the pill, but they could also help you not to have your finger bitten or potentially scratched in the meantime. So you'll just place the pill down in the pill popper, and then you'll open your cat's mouth and pop it down their throat.If your cat is a foodie, the best way to give medicine to a cat is to try and hide it in food. As you can see,

So as far as that goes, we can prescribe some types of medications that are hopefully going to be a liquid because I know it's a little easier, but we have some pills as well. We have NSAIDS that are specifically made and formulated for cats. Those are going to be a lot safer for them, especially whenever it comes to their kidneys. And we are also going to be able to provide some other pain medications like gabapentin, which you kind of run into the same situation with that as far as the cat being so small, that getting an accurate human dose is a little bit hard. Many times we will have those made into liquid medications.

There are. There are some antihistamines that you can give to cats. And there are also things that we routinely use, such as antibiotics, antifungals, and things like that. But you certainly want to consult with your veterinarian before you give them because cats are such sensitive beings.