Jayjay and I have a convalescing cat here and a bottle of pain pills, if she needs them. We tried to give her a pill when we got home from the vet to no avail. We tried the baisc way by putting it in her mouth. No good. We tried hand feeding her and mixing it in with the food. Still she spit out the food. What can we do to help her if she is in apin?
Here’s a good website, with photos: http://www.marvistavet.com/html/pilling_a_cat.html.
And here’s a funny riposte: http://dbhs.wvusd.k12.ca.us/webdocs/Humor/Give-Pill-Cat-Dog.html
Thank you! Jayjay actually sent me the funny riposte site when we got home…lol. It was quite like our experience.
I’ve had to do this. It’s easier with two people.
Acquire cat. More difficult than it sounds after the first time you do this.
One of you grab cats FIRMLY.
Squeeze cat’s jaw until mouth opens.
HOLD MOUTH OPEN FIRMLY. Someone will lose a finger otherwise.
Place pill in cats mouth. Use finger to push ALL the way back.
Close cats mouth. Hold.
After cat swallows run like hell because it’s about to channel it’s saber-toothed ancestors.
Try stroking it’s throat as well while holding it’s mouth closed, to stimulate the swallow reflex.
If she’s an accomplished spitter, you’d do well to spring a buck or so for a pill gun. It’s a plastic thingie that looks sort of like an old-fashioned cigarrette holder, with a little rubber cup on one end and a plunger on the other. It’s much easier to get all the way to the back of the mouth with one of these than with a finger, plus it greatly reduces the likelihood of being bitten if kitty is so minded.
I usually just grab the scruff and tilt the head back, shove the pill all the way to the back of the throat, hold the mouth shut, and rub the throat till they swallow. (For really nasty cats, you can use the pill gun to rub the throat without getting all clawed up.)
Very carefully!
I don’t know if this will work, but you could try mixing the contents of the pill into her food. I’m going to take CrazyCatLady’s word on this question though. Something tells me she may be a leading authority, although I don’t know how many cats she has so I cannot judge.
If you have two people, you can have one be the holder. Put the cat on the floor, kneel down straddling the cat so your legs are on either side and the cat can’t go backward. Hold the chest/front legs with both hands, maybe wear gloves… Then the other can open the mouth and shove the pill in there. One trick to get them to swallow is to blow in their nose, hold the mouth shut and blow a strong puff of air in their nose, it activates a swallow reflex. You want to be sure the cat is secure before sticking your face in there though.
I dispense fentynal patches for cats with moderate to severe pain. Seventy two hours of analgesia from a single patch. May be worth asking your veterinarian about.
I want to thank everyone for all of the advise. I was able to give her a pain pill this morning quite successfully. Now for the liquid antibiotics. dons bib. 
For the liquid antibiotics, try mixing it with meat baby food (chicken, turkey, ham–but check the ingredients, because some of them have other things in them like onion that are bad for kitties. In Gerber, lamb and beef are no good for this reason).
Works great with our cats. They think it’s a treat. 
The real trick is to do it in such a way that the cat doesn’t see it as a big, scarey production, but just a routine part of its day. Our Peach gets a pill twice a day for her over-active thyroid. We’ve been doing this for over a year, and now it’s a 60-second routine process. (The first couple of months were a regular battle though.)
What about smashing the pill to powder and mixing it with a little bit of wet cat food/tuna/something addictive?