Our sweet little kitty Max has fatty liver disease, so we’re feeding him multiple times a day through a tube in his stomach, using these very large syringes to pass food directly into his system (the tube doesn’t go through the esophagus).
Our problem is that, for whatever reason, our syringe technique sucks. If we have to give him a little anti-biotic in a small syringe, it’s fine. But in these larger syringes, with this very dense, heavy food, we get stuck with these air pockets that make the syringes almost impossible to depress.
And it’s not simply because the tube is backed up. When we remove the syringe and try to depress it (say, into a sink), we can still get nothing out. We’ll push and push, but there’s some type of blockage that prevents the plunger from moving, until there’s finally enough force that everything is released with explosive force.
We’re also inclined to think that the blockage is not just food, because the same thing happens when we use the syringe to hold water. In the smaller syringes, the water releases easily, but in the larger syringes (which we have to use because of the way the tip fits into the tube), the plunger won’t go down easily—only explosively, again, and after much effort.
Needless to say, feeding him the sufficient amount of food per sitting has been extraordinarily difficult as a result. Because of the food, air pockets are a more common occurrence, and although sometimes the food slides down slowly and easily, just as often this invisible barrier prevents any type of passage, prolonging the procedure and scaring the little fella even more.
If it were just the food, we’d blame that—but it happens with the water, too, so we think it has something to do with the large, thick syringes (60+cc) and something we’re doing that aggravates the problem.
Help! 
