Dosing strength for Acetaminophen

[PamnReba]

So, the coffee grinder and massive bottle of pills came in yesterday, and I tried a dose with two peppermints last night - she was suspicious but ate it. She also blew into her bucket at first, creating a halo of white powder over her head. Hmmm, need to do something about that…

So this morning I tried two new things - one, I used two Mrs. Pastures cookies (she’ll walk though fire for those, peppermints are just meh) in the coffer grinder with the pills, and two, I used a spray bottle to wet her pellets down before adding the powdered pills. That worked better, and she definitely was more enthusiastic about eating - but I didn’t get things wet enough to keep all the powder on her feed. She still blew out a cloud of it.

So I think I may have to do a combo of grinding and wetting, and maybe then add to her feed? Like, grind the powder, make a paste of it, and then plop it on her pellets. Not sure how easily that will transfer though, so maybe I just need to add more water after I put the powder in her bucket - more than I can spray, at least. Thirty pills makes a LOT of powder! And the cookies add a bit to the volume too. Or maybe revisit the syringe idea someone else mentioned, only grind them first instead of just waiting for them to dissolve.

Any additional suggestions or ideas I’m not coming up with? I’d like to keep it as simple as possible, and welcome the COTH wealth of knowledge, as always!

Oh, and this may wind up being an exercise in futility, as the mystery lameness I was trying to treat looks like it blew out near her heel this morning. I suspected an abscess, but wasn’t sure. It’s a small spot though, there may be more to come. And a little pain med, especially if it’s fairly benign, can’t hurt!

[EmilyM]

i usually put it in a dosing syringe and pop in their mouth. sometimes you need two syringes to get all the liquid and powder to fit.

[NaturallyHappy]

They dissolve very quickly in warm water- no need to grind them up. It took a couple of tries for me to get just the right amount of water so it wasn’t too thick or too runny.

[JB]

when I was giving 12-15 of 150mg trazadone pills (they’re not small) I would dissolve them in water then mix it all in his meals. Plenty of water so the water was still “water”, not anything close to a paste. This allowed all the bitter particles to disperse, and he never even noticed. This was after him deciding they were Satan himself and was either going to double-barrel me, or jump out of his stall (not exaggerating) when he saw the halter and syringe, it was that bad

Trying to mix a paste in might have some clumps of pastier things she may not eat.

[PamnReba]

For a syringe, can I just reuse a Bute tube? I’m thinking make a liquid-y paste and suck it up into the syringe. She’s fine with pasting. OR, put the powder in the syringe, add water until slightly soupy, then squirt on food! That might work. Three steps, but minimal mess. Maybe. Possibly a giant mess trying to get the dry powder into the tube - I’ll be the one snorting acetaminophen dust! I’ll need a funnel and three hands - so no, that may not work after all.

Now I’m back to wetting her food enough for the dust to stick. I really want to stay with the grinding method, mainly to keep the cookies in the mix so it hopefully tastes better. If they would dissolve like the tablets will that would be helpful - but have you ever soaked a Mrs. Pasture cookie? They’re so hard and dry I thought the grinding would be easier, but now I’m going to go grab one, soak it, and see if it ever gets soft. This may be where the coffee flavoring comes in, use that instead of the hard cookie!

Good lord, I’m all over the place with this, aren’t I?

[JB]

Are her meals dry or wet? Will she eat a wet meal? That makes things so much easier

I use a funnel to put powder into a syringe. I grind bute tabs, put into syringe with my finger over the tip. Then I lay the plunger JUST to the edge of the opening, and tip it back up so the powder falls back but not out. Then I slowly push the plunger in so that I can draw water back

If the aceto dissolves easily enough in water, put them into a 60cc syringe and suck up 50cc or so of water, let dissolve, then squirt. Or, put the pills in a small tupperware-type container, add 1/2-1c water, dissolve, swirl, dump on food, rinse the container with a little more water to get bits, add to food, mix

[NaturallyHappy]

My very favorite thing to do in the kitchen is to put the plunger in too fast and blow it all over the kitchen…NOT!!!

[trubandloki]

@NaturallyHappy, I liked your post not because it is good to explode meds all over the kitchen, but because I totally know the feeling.

[NaturallyHappy]

You made me laugh out loud. I knew that is what you meant.

[PamnReba]

I currently feed her dry pellets, but she’ll eat wet just as easily. I just weaned my 30 year old off his mash (mild choke incident prompted softer food for a short time) and I would rather not go back to hauling water and rinsing buckets just yet if I don’t have to. But your last suggestion may be easy enough to do without involving a syringe that I will also either put the plunger in too fast, accidently move my plugging finger, or fifteen other mishaps that could occur. I’m a natural-born klutz that can make a mess out of anything.

In other news, we are on hour four of the Dissolve a Mrs. Pasture’s Cookie Project, and I still have half a solid cookie.

[trubandloki]

I do this with supplements not meds, but it would work with meds.

Dry pellets in feed tub, add what is likely 1/4Cup of water (just a little), stir it (I literally have what was a free dog food scoop I use for both scooping a small amount of water from the water bucket and then stirring the pellets and water together). Toss in the supplements/meds, another light stir so those stick to the pellets that are moistened.

All I have to do is rinse the scoop thing I use.

[PamnReba]

The last two feedings I have resorted to mixing everything in her bucket, adding water from a pitcher I keep in the tack/feed room and stir 'til soaked up. It works, and the powder just disappears, but after I dump that in her feeder I still have to rinse the original bucket. I’d love to just mix it in her feeder, but that is firmly attached to a bracket to minimize banging and would be more trouble than it’s worth to remove. This is working for now, but I plan to test the dissolve in a syringe idea when I get a chance. I still have the cap for the tip of the bute syringe, so hopefully I won’t make too much of a mess!