There's Gotta Be Another Way

[Rackonteur]

Oh, goodness, I am so sorry for you and Ivy*. But I have to thank you for the big laugh, and also for my friend (the one who has the cat who is the opposite of constipated. We laughed so hard when I was trying to read this aloud that I had to keep stopping so we could hear the story.

My mother was not a cat person. ** But she loved the ivy she planted and tended in our yard. And she would definitely have said that it could be … challenging.

**She was cat-phobic I think but she took wonderful care of her two grandcats when called upon to temporarily house them (ca 20 years apart).

[Rackonteur]

Thank you.
When I have been giving my kitty her meds I have been telling her how grateful I am that she is not a 16-hand horse!
Which is the same thing I used to tell our 11h pony who had probably never been in cross-ties in his life until we got him. Not that anything “unpleasant” ever happened to him in there. Well, except for occasional applications of ointment on the rash at one barn at the opposite end of him from his teeth.

[Angela_Freda]

@Rackonteur

I may try that. Problem is, this medicine is so sticky it’s worse than grape jelly on a toddler

What’s sticky, miralax?
The stuff I used was a powder easily mixed into canned cat food.

[DiamondJubilee]

Lactulose is like a sticky syrup. We sell a lot of it at our vet compounding pharmacy and hate transferring it over to small bottles ha ha!

I was trying to think if we ever made a transdermal gel as a laxitive as cats are the drama queens of medicating! We sell and make a lot of TDG’s for cats since its so much easier to rub a gel into their ear than to fight pilling or dosing a liquid…

But it looks like we have only made a PEG 3350 powder and sell lactulose. You could see if your vet can have a local compounding pharmacy make a transdermal for you?

[Rackonteur]

Lactulose.

[Angela_Freda]

But the miralax in pate is working?

[Rackonteur]

It worked yesterday. This morning I mixed the Miralax with another food but she didn’t eat it as well.

[FrittSkritt]

I’m telling you, giving my horse Flagyl (Metronidazole) via enema was much less traumatic than trying to force it down his throat (and consequently have him go off his feed due to the awful taste). Can’t knock the poo route!

[Angela_Freda]

We did that when my horse had cellulitis and we were using three ABs and he was a pia for oral meds.

[Rackonteur]

Two days in a row now we have successfully managed the Lactulose dosing. Both times I woke her from a nap and got the med into her mouth before she quite knew what I was doing. The other time I put her on a towel on the kitchen counter and cuddled her and rubbed her, before and after, and she endured it.

[Kyrabee]

I fed one of my cats Miralax for years. I just mixed it up a bit of water and mixed it in his wet food which he ate promptly 99% of the time. It is tasteless it shouldn’t be noticed mixing in wet food.

The lactulose…yeah, that one is tougher. I was able to deal with his constipation with either Miralax or Benefiber mixed in his food.

Susan

[Rackonteur]

Benefiber, eh?
I must ask our vet about that …
Thank you.

[Rackonteur]

Another successful shot of Lactulose this morning, with cuddles and rubs, on the kitchen counter.
Whew!
Followed by a good catnap.

[Rackonteur]

Do any of you know anything about a cat (and human, I think) med called Cisapride?

[shiloh]

Propulsid (cisapride) dosing, indications, interactions, adverse effects, and more (medscape.com)

just shows human stuff but you get a good idea of the basics

and here’s this
Managing Cat Constipation with Cisapride (vetinfo.com)

[Rackonteur]

Thank you very much.

[shiloh]

you’re welcome

don’t take this the wrong way - hope you have a “crappy” day lol

[Rackonteur]

Thank you! We have had a nicely crappy day today!

[Rackonteur]

Well, today was a different sort of crappy day.
She resisted her tiny little .1 ml oral injection of Metacam, and fought so hard against the 1 mil of Lactulose that I gave up after .5 ml and promised her Never Again. When she has to put up BOTH forepaws to push my hand away – and despite all her distress she keeps her claws sheathed! – then it is time to quit and retreat and determine to find her a laxative she will take willingly.

Now to scour the Internet to see if such a phenomenon exists …

[Angela_Freda]

I’m sorry, I may have missed it, is she refusing food with Miralax in it?

I used the Fancy Feast treats: Purely Fancy Feast treats to train my cat to let me test his blood glucose and then dose his insulin.

We started out with me straddling him in the tiny confines of the half bath… to him happily jumping up on his towel on the kitchen counter every morning to lay sternal on it for me to prick his ear and test and dose his insulin. And there were certainly days that our progress backslid. The trick is to focus on the several days you got it done (and be sure to replicate what you did when you were successful), not the one day it went poorly

It wasn’t easy or fast or pretty… I’m certainly not saying it was.
But it was daily routine, with treats that won him over.
.