I've ruined treats for my cat: The Gabapentin Problem

April 10, 2023 9:43 AM

Apparently gabapentin tastes really, really bad. Jonathan the cat is supposed to consume 50 mg/day, which is half of the powder inside a capsule. Jonathan the cat insists on chewing pill pockets which means they really don't hide anything. I've already tried double layering the pill pockets (it would be six per day anyway). I've contacted a compounding pharmacy - they won't make tablets, and I know the "flavorings" won't work. Help!

At this point, I'm wondering if I can make tiny tablets myself and coat them somehow. This seems like a bad idea, but... I'm out of good ones.

Dissolve in liquid and use a dosing syringe? I don't see that going well.

DIY tiny capsules? Maybe? He'd probably chew those, plus I guess I'd need some tiny, tiny funnels and something to hold the capsule half upright, and... I do have other interests. This seems like a huge time sink.

He's prescribed 50 mg/day. The cat will probably feel much, much better if he has this medication.

Now, I hold out a treat, and the cat actually backs away, while looking at me like I'm going to shove him into a van with darkened windows and then traffic him internationally.

posted by amtho to Grab Bag (39 answers total)

Mix into wet cat food
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 9:58 AM on April 10, 2023 [5 favorites]

Can you buy a milligram scale, measure out the powder, and mix it into a favorite brand of wet food?
posted by derrinyet at 9:59 AM on April 10, 2023

I've contacted a compounding pharmacy - they won't make tablets, and I know the "flavorings" won't work.

Are you certain (i.e., from experience)? I recently had a very similar experience with my dog and fluoxetine. I was not at all optimistic about compounding a chew for him--if the chicken, etc. flavoring of the pill pocket didn't work, why would the chew? But actually he takes the chew just fine (it's dark brown so I just pull it into a couple of pieces and mix it in with his kibble).

It took a while to get over his suspicion of all things pill pocket-like. I ended up putting extra-value treats in the pockets and smearing them with goat cheese (a favorite) and just leaving them for him to investigate on his own. Eventually, he regained his enthusiasm.
posted by praemunire at 9:59 AM on April 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Mix the powder into something wet and smelly and yummy -
The juice from wet cat food
The juice from canned tuna, salmon, or sardines (get a low-sodium version)
Yogurt
Vanilla ice cream
Butter
Meat broth
There's a kind of cat food called "lickables" - it's basically a small foil pouch with like 6 tiny bits of tuna with cornstarch to thicken the juice, from what I can tell - and cats go NUTS for it.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 10:01 AM on April 10, 2023

Response by poster: Lickables is an option, BUT: this is a cat with pretty significant IBS. He's on prescription food, prescription hi-dose probiotics, and steroids to treat that. So I should be judicious with anything too fatty (i.e. delicious).

Also, the compounded option -- while I'm exploring it for completeness -- is probably too expensive.

He has eaten yogurt before, but only very very tiny amounts.


I can barely get him to eat his prescription wet food. He really wants to eat kibble -- at least, he did until I started putting Cosequin on it. He does beg for clicker training because he loves the greenies treats and the dehydrated turkey.

He's also not enthusiastic about, say, cooked chicken (but hey, I haven't tried in a while).

I'll try a Churu. If nothing else, I guess maybe I could put adulterated Churu guts into a syringe -- but there's so much powder to dose I can't see that working well.

I've been reading accounts of humans complaining about the taste too. Apparently it's really, really bad, and it can also cause other things to taste metallic. Ugh. But it sounds like an awesome drug - should help him with arthritis pain and also depression/anxiety.
posted by amtho at 10:04 AM on April 10, 2023

We get liquid gabapentin for Annie the dog. Annie gets a syringe in her mouth, which is admittedly a bit of a struggle, and then a slice or two of her favorite deli turkey and she seems to regard that as a fair trade.

Does your vet have the liquid version available?
posted by mochapickle at 10:07 AM on April 10, 2023 [10 favorites]

The only difference between pill pockets for cats and pill pockets for dogs is that the pill pockets for dogs are 3x larger. Sounds like pill pockets may not be working anymore anyway, but if you want to give it one more go, try upgrading to the much larger dog size.

I actually use the kitty pill pockets for my dog who takes drugs 2x a day because he's so small and I'd rather him get his cals from his more nutritious kibble.
posted by phunniemee at 10:16 AM on April 10, 2023

Our cat figured out how to eat pill pockets without eating the pill. As a result, we had to use the old fashioned technique of dropping the pill into the back of the cat's throat, followed by holding the mouth closed while rubbing the throat gently. It actually wasn't that bad, and the cat recovered from each dose quickly.

For full instructions see method 2 on this page.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 10:17 AM on April 10, 2023 [10 favorites]

Oh, and you can certainly take the capsules and split them by hand into two smaller capsules. Or you could look for a mail order vet pharmacy that would get you the pills or capsules in the right dose.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 10:18 AM on April 10, 2023

A pilling averse cat of ours who will not go anywhere near the flavored compounded liquid gaba will willingly eat these chews broken up and placed in pill pockets

https://www.wedgewoodpharmacy.com/items/gabapentin-chew-treat.html
posted by Sockrates at 10:29 AM on April 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

I don’t have cats, but I do have lots of experience pilling dogs. We went through a similar situation where a dog bit into the pill contained in the pill pocket and then refused to go near them for a months. The good news is, after some time passed she forgot about the trauma and we were able to go back to the pill pockets.

In the meantime I made up a yummy paste of stuff in the mini food processor that was sticky enough to surround the pill and exciting enough that she would swallow it without chewing. That might be more difficult with the dietary restrictions, but if she has treats she likes it could even be processing those with a little liquid to get the right consistency.
posted by thejanna at 10:36 AM on April 10, 2023

Response by poster: Sockrates - That sounds promising if it's not too expensive. I just called Wedgewood, but they would not give me a price without me going through the whole process of getting the vet to write a prescription to them. Ugh. I'd appreciate if you could let me know your costs?
posted by amtho at 10:38 AM on April 10, 2023

Rolling the pill in soft butter and shoving it down the cat's throat is how I administer gabapentin for vet's visits*. Are you really not open to straight up pilling? I see, how it would quickly get to be too much for 6 pills a day...
*this is basically done by kneeling on the floor with cat between your knees, opening the maw with one of the free hands and shoving the pill in, then closing the maw and holding till she swallows.
posted by Dotty at 11:15 AM on April 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

We have to feed our cat a daily powder for her glands that she hates the flavor of (glandex) . What worked for her was mixing that plus a pack of fortiflora probiotic into a churu. She goes crazy over the smell of the fortiflora and it covers up the scent of the glandex. She begs for this mixture every day and this is a cat who rejects almost all food.
posted by matcha action at 11:20 AM on April 10, 2023

Response by poster: I'm open to pilling! Right now all I have is powder inside capsules that are 2x the dose size. I wasn't even sure it came in 50 mg pills. Still not sure.
posted by amtho at 11:20 AM on April 10, 2023

Different compounding pharmacies have really different price points. I worked as a credentialed veterinary technician in a major city and I would price shop for my clients and sometimes it was amazing how differently things were priced at different compounding pharmacies. Would your vet be willing to help you do this?

My cat is on 60mg twice a day and we have to do flavorless liquid. I give orally via syringe and then give them a ton of treats. Sounds like this might not work for you because of the IBD. I do have to wonder though if it’s worth giving the gaba to your kitty and creating this food aversion when it’s been hard to get kitty to eat their IBD diet. Does kitty struggle to maintain an appropriate weight/keep weight on? 50mg a day is a very small dose unless kitty is very small/ the dose has been reduced due to renal impairment.

Could you potentially stop the gaba for a week to try and rest set the treat/food aversion and try again?
posted by OsoMeaty at 11:25 AM on April 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

I don’t believe gaba comes in 50mg capsules or tablets. A compounding pharmacy should be able to compound micro tabs.
posted by OsoMeaty at 11:26 AM on April 10, 2023

This was a constant struggle for us with medicating our cat. Pill pockets worked great until one day they didn't, and then she wouldn't touch them. Same with little bits of cheese. We tried flavored liquid meds and unfortunately it didn't make it any tastier for her. One thing I wish we never did is put bad tasting stuff in her wet food!! It backfired and turned her off completely from whatever flavor of wet food food that was. The last thing you want is your cat to become averse to its best source of nutrition and bonus hydration. In retrospect, I wish we learned to make her swallow the pulls. Better something briefly unpleasant that she can't control, then a treat.
posted by prewar lemonade at 11:37 AM on April 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Oh, there is also transdermal Gabapentin which you apply to skin, Wedgewood should be able to make this. There’s much less agreement on how effective this formulation is and I’m not sure about the price. I would personally use this, but I’m not currently in a state that allows this kind of compounding .
posted by OsoMeaty at 11:38 AM on April 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

We hard a weird cat who actually liked the gelatin capsules that Cosequin comes in. She turned her nose up to the powder but seemed to think the capsule itself was a treat. Cats are strange. We would hide her other med (a tablet of methimizol) inside the Cosequin capsule.

It's worth a shot to offer him the Cosequin capsule and see if he's game.
posted by BrashTech at 11:41 AM on April 10, 2023

Sorry, this isn’t vet med advice but the dose your kitty is on for gaba is just very small (or your kitty is the tiniest kitten, or has severe renal disease). Gabapentin is usually dosed at 10 - 20mg/kg 2-3x a day. So 50mg a day may not be making a difference. I only bring this up to say, it may not be worth all the pain and food aversion. I’d double check with your vet that this is the correct dose. Of course if you feel like this is making a big difference in your kitty’s quality of life than solider on.
posted by OsoMeaty at 11:47 AM on April 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

I just put the powder in an egg cup, add a bit of water (like 1.5 ml, so a few drops dripping from a wet finger), then suction it into a small syringe without a needle. Cat between knees, open cat's mouth with left hand, quickly apply syringe to back of mouth with the other. (Works a treat with water only to wash down pills, too.) Yes, he hated it VERY MUCH, but it got the gabapentin into him, especially when I offered actually good-tasting treats afterwards to banish the utter bitterness.

Honestly all cat medicine should come in liquid form. Far harder to spit up.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 11:53 AM on April 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

One of the cats I pet-sat a while back had to take their medicine as a paste with a needleless syringe in the mouth. But first you had to find the cat, which could take up to an hour.

Just a heads-up about Greenies, they are basically green kibble (with different micronutrient dosage).
posted by aniola at 12:12 PM on April 10, 2023

I would buy empty capsules so that you can split up each existing capsule's dose into two, then use a piller like this to pill your cat. Maybe you can coat the capsule in something that tastes good / helps it go down easier, like margarine/butter.
posted by trillian at 12:15 PM on April 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

Our cat just went through this (first rejecting pill pockets, then rejecting hiding in wet food). For Gabapentin specifically we did pretty well with dissolving in water and shooting it in his mouth with a needless syringe. For his other meds, we got a prescription for transdermal versions via a compounding pharmacy- you put it on their ear. Warning: this option is expensive ($45 /month for us). We never could manage the shoving the pill in his mouth deal.
posted by damayanti at 12:21 PM on April 10, 2023

We have a lot of pets on various doses of Gabapentin. We get compounded pills through Vetsfirstchoice.com (Covetrus?) at $70 for 120 50mg pills.

I just use a pill shooter for my cats - having tried pill pockets and mixing into various things, they can usually tell when something is adulterated and avoid it like the plague.

To OsoMeaty's point: I've had two senior cats on Gabapentin and they got 50mg 2x per day, initially. Our 18-year-old, Bubby, is about 16 pounds and gets that 3x per day now.
posted by jzb at 12:29 PM on April 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

We dissolve the dose in some wet food juice and use a syringe to squirt the dose in her mouth. It’s a one person job and truly not that bad. It has the added benefit of ensuring we know she took the whole dose.

(Our cat would never eat a treat pill, or lick food that had been contaminated by any type of medicine. Down the hatch is the only way).
posted by lydhre at 12:33 PM on April 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

What "I claim sanctuary" said, but have a second syringe ready with water to wash down the taste. The whole procedure can be really quick when you get the hang of it. Been there, done that with icky meds.
posted by Ferrari328 at 1:46 PM on April 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

I have to give one of our cats a pill every night, and a second pill every other night. A vet taught me the following technique.

First, bring the thumb and index finger of one hand down and in, from in front and above, till they're against the sides of the cat's upper lips, like a pincer. Your hand should be curved over the upper part of the cat's face, with your wrist toward the back. You'll gently flatten the cat's whiskers back if you're doing this right.

Then squeeze slightly, pressing the lips inward, and simultaneously pull up, to tilt the cat's head backward. The cat will reflexively open its mouth wide, to avoid biting its own lips.

You can then chuck the pill down the cat's throat with your other hand. As soon as you see the pill is in too deep for the cat to spit it out, you can let go.

Of course this takes practice -- for you to get good at it, and for the cat to get used to it! My cat still makes little noises of disgust and annoyance when I do this, but I've learned to do it very quickly. I don't even have to hold his mouth shut afterwards (but you may want to do this at first, especially if you're unsure whether you've tossed the pill down far enough that the cat can't spit it out).

This is key: I give him his dinner *immediately* afterwards. So he now thinks of the pilling as the necessary prelude to his food... which makes it more tolerable.

After years of doing this, I still occasionally toss the pill in slightly wrong, and he's able to spit it out. But 95% of the time, it goes right down his gullet.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 1:55 PM on April 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

Dosing cats with liquid in a syringe (orally, no needle) is surprisingly doable - I've given my foster kittens lots and lots of meds that way and it always works. I had to watch a few youtube videos the first time to learn the tricks, but I find it much easier than cutting nails, for example. I do make sure to give them a treat directly afterwards, and they usually forgive me pretty quickly.
posted by catcafe at 2:55 PM on April 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Liquid gabapentin with a dosing syringe, right down the hatch, worked for my cat. He didn’t love it, but it was much quicker than pilling and a (non-pilled) treat afterwards helped make it up to him.
posted by ourobouros at 3:31 PM on April 10, 2023 [6 favorites]

My cat takes a bunch of meds that taste bad. I cut the pills up and put them into gelcaps and then we swipe it with butter and dose her with a pill shooter. She fought it a lot at first and now is used to it and doesn’t fight much (she gets a meal directly after). She also refuses pill pockets and churru type treats after some nasty tasting meds but this has worked surprisingly well.
She’s also on 25mg of gabapentin twice a day (mixed in her food) and we open a 100mg capsule into a little container and divy it up into 4 parts with a 1/8tsp measuring spoon. Takes 20 seconds. It’s not exact but close enough and is noticeably helping. I would not worry too much about giving her exactly half of a capsule each time.
posted by john_snow at 4:27 PM on April 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

+1 on the liquids from a syringe for our senior floof. We do this for all her meds. Our vet gives it to us in solution. Just grab her head, get her to open her mouth, and squirt it in. Apply pampering afterward.
posted by chbrooks at 5:14 PM on April 10, 2023

I wish I had better news for you, but ten 100 mg chews came out to $52 for me.
posted by Sockrates at 5:25 PM on April 10, 2023

It's been my experience that the Gabapentin formulations other than capsules or pills are really expensive, and it also seems like the prices of different doses are pretty close or sometimes identical (e.g. 100mg and 300mg capsules are listed for exactly the same price at Costco). If you can even find 50mg tablets or capsules, I would expect them to cost nearly as much as the same number of 100mg's.

One of my girls takes 200mg twice per day, via the capsule powder mixed into her wet food, but I do have to sprinkle dehydrated chicken and some crumbled Greenies on top to get her to eat it. I can get the 100mg capsules from Costco for about 10 cents each, since she needs so many. Occasionally she is fussy and won't eat in the morning, so I have been working on backup plans to get her meds in on those days. She's a serious bite risk, so pilling or syringed liquids are not really an option for us, and neither is transdermal.

I've gotten the following from Wedgewood:
100mg Quad Tabs, 120 for $62 plus $9.50 shipping plus tax
50mg Medimelts, 20 for about $42.80 (vet had these in stock, not sure if there was a little extra markup)
50mg Tiny Tabs, 20 for $41.50 plus $9.50 shipping plus tax

The quad tabs were a misunderstanding and weren't what I was really looking for. She's hit or miss with the Medimelts -- she will sometimes take them with kibble that she likes way more than her medicated wet food. The tiny tabs are on the way; my hope is to give those inside the greenies with filling if they are small enough. Luckily, just a little seems to restore her appetite, so I don't need to give her full dose in these pricy things.

My other last resort is giving the capsule powder mixed in chicken baby food; she is a rare cat who could care less about Churu. We get Gerber chicken+gravy, just make sure there's nothing extra like garlic or onion, which are toxic to cats.

For any of my other cats, I could easily give it in Churu or a syringe.
posted by ktkt at 6:54 PM on April 10, 2023

I had this problem with our dog and finally hit on squirting a dollop of easy cheese on top of the pill pocket. It's been six months and he's still not onto us.
posted by Tuba Toothpaste at 10:19 PM on April 10, 2023

Response by poster: OK you guys, inspired by tales of compounded chews, pilling methods, and other tidbits from this thread, I tried the following and it seemed to work:

Earlier today, I'd mixed the powder with Pill Pocket dough, to make ~6 little balls (that's ~50 mg gabapentin).

I tried giving him two of those this morning, wrapped inside more Pill Pocket dough and it did not work (then I wrote this AskMe question).

BUT

I just fed him the other four balls _as pills_, using the head-holding technique described by Artifice_Eternity (or something like it -- I think I saw it demonstrated previously). The balls had somewhat dried out, so they were more pill-like.

It worked! Will it work in the future? Possibly so! Has it affected the action of the gabapentin? I hope not, but we'll see.


I really used the composite of the answers here to come up with this approach. I'm not sure I want to do it every time, but I _can_ if I have to.

Thank you!
posted by amtho at 10:20 PM on April 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

The method/video I found most helpful when learning to pill my cat was from Vancouver Vet (of squish the cat internet fame)
posted by eviemath at 4:44 AM on April 11, 2023 [2 favorites]

You can ask your vet for liquid Gabapentin and it should come in tiny insulin-sized syringes (minidancinglamb's cat gets it that way), or if you still want to do the powder, mix it with a little bit of apple sauce! It's how I give it to my eldest Frenchie twice a day and snarfs it right down without a problem.



I take my Gabapentin with a swig of water ;)
posted by dancinglamb at 7:38 AM on April 11, 2023 [1 favorite]