Numbing creme that is safe for cats? Other ideas to improve testing experience?

Hi. I just started home testing two days ago. The first time went great, but it has been downhill since then. She knows what is coming now, and she HATES it. She is a very scared, skiddish cat by nature. I am doing everything I can to make it a calm experience. I am applying all of the suggestions I have seen here. I do not use the lancing device; I use the lancets by hand. I picked a special place to always take her to do it, and I love on her a lot and sweet talk to her through the whole thing. I am warming her ear with my hand first (she tolerates that better than a foreign object - no heated rice sock for her). I even heated a lavender spa bag and used that to warm my hand plus hoped having the lavender scent around might calm her. I am offering her the ONLY thing that she cares enough about that it can be used as a treat/bribe, tuna. She wants her tuna bite really bad, but it seems that she is even starting to question whether it is worth it. She just wants to get away from the whole situation.

I am trying to hit the 'sweet spot' between the edge of the ear and the vein though I am not able to see as well I would like with her trying to flee. A couple of times, I barely got a blood spot to appear, not enough to test. A couple of other times I got more blood than I wanted. I do not know if the difference is that I am hitting the vein by mistake or if her right ear just bleeds more (on another thread some people said one of their cat's ears bleeds more.)

I know this is not supposed to hurt them, but she behaves as though the stick does hurt. So, I would really like to try some type of topical anesthetic to numb the area. Has anyone tried that? Do you know of any that are safe for cats? I have started searching but have yet to really find anything. Do you have any other ideas??? I HAVE to figure out how to make this better. I know testing is super important, but I am not sure she or I can keep this up. I really need to do a curve soon but simply cannot with things as they are.

Help, please.

 

Maybe a plain lidocaine gel would work. Not sure if it would or could interfere with a reading but it's worth looking into. By the way- if it bleeds a lot you may have hit the vein. I did it a couple times with my kitty and it was so upsetting to me because I couldn't figure out what I did wrong at first. People here told me what probably happened. Since he is on a blood thinner he bleeds a lot and when I went to check on him in the closet there was blood everywhere. I almost had a heart attack! My kitty is a forgiving soul though and he forgave me. I was a nervous wreck when I started home testing. People here helped me a lot and no one made me feel stupid (I did that fine all by myself) for the questions I asked.

 

what size lancet are you using...I had 30G with the meter and pple here suggested 26-28g...I got a 28g and it works well for me to get blood tho soetimes had to do it twice... and it is also true (for me it was) that it might take a few pricks for the ears to start bleeding easier...I had to wrap my casey in a towel and hold him between my legs and he got used to it...now I dont have to use the towel anymore...but he wont let me prick his ear unless I hold him between my knees on the floor...for some reason he doesnt try to escape.

 

I use the ones that came with the AlphaTrak. I believe they are 28.

 

Leo know that treats follow ear testing. We turned a stress situation into a routine with a treat.

 

I used neosporin ointment with pain relief and freeze dried chicken or turkey as treats after each poke.

 

One mistake I made at the beginning and was getting the exact same response as you, was that originally I only took her to that spot for testing. When she started doing what your wee one is doing, I changed and sometimes (4-5 times a day) just took her there and played with her without testing. You can do this and so can kitty.

 

I picked a spot that was already a spot she associates with good things. She often gets love there and play time, and she is still fine with getting either of those things in that spot, just not the test.

 

I have put a little regular Neosporin on her ear a couple of times after, but that does not accomplish numbing the area before so that she does not feel the poke.
I wish she liked freeze dried treats. She has never been interested in treats not even before all of this. Tuna is very literally the only thing she goes crazy for.

 

That is what I was hoping to accomplish with her tuna, but it is not quite working as hoped.

 

This is what I have been wondering about. I have been researching to see if it would be harmful but have not yet found enough info to make me comfortable trying it. I am going to keep looking though!

 

That's what I did (the end of my bed where she always likes to sleep and she still sleeps there)

When I spent time playing (about 5-6 times a day for 5 mins) I rubbed her ears a bit occasionally, then played more, and always left it at the playing stage and the. The treats are very important- she actually went off fresh chicken for a while as her association wasn't good but likes it now. The thrive treats works really well for me, you could also try some catnip?

Remember pavlovs dogs? Basically you are trying to recreate a conditioned response in your kitty. So instead of a dog drooling at the sound of a bell. You want to condition your kitty to think test=nice
It's not going to happen fast (although that depends on your kitty of course, some take to it like a duck to water)

It takes a long time usually to get a conditioned response from people and animals - it just needs to be consistent.

I am absolutely 110% positive you can do This!

At one point I had to actually sit (like have her between my legs with my feet locked so she couldn't go backwards) on her to test. It was probably the most difficult and frustrating part of the whole thing for me.

 

For many of us, a numbing creme is not an option. I test Leo multiple times in the day.