E-collar problems - How to keep a cat from licking a wound?

Hi, everyone. My Gorgeous had to go to the vet yesterday after she got an abscess under her tail. Nasty business. The vet drained it and sent me home with instructions on how to care for it, assuring me all would be well in 3-4 days.

Unfortunately, my vet is a bit optimistic about Gorgeous' compliance with the treatment. I've done my best to keep the wound clean and put anti-bacterial cream on it, as well as giving her drops that my vet says will stave off the pain and keep the area from swelling.

The biggest problem now is her refusal to wear the Elizabethan collar we got sent home with. The vet said she had to wear it for the rest of the week, until the wound heals, to prevent her from licking off all the cream and keeping the wound open by not letting it dry (or so I understood).

As soon as I put it on yesterday, she had a fit and ran all over the house (backwards) with her eyes bulging out. I managed to calm her down for a few minutes by giving her a can of food, but as soon as she finished, she resumed her battle with the collar. She ended up climbing under my bed and easily ripping it off. (It was attached by a safety collar, the type that snaps open if you pull hard enough. She pulled hard enough.)

She's acting her usual self now, but I'm worried that she's still licking at the wound, and I can't get her to stop. I don't want to put the collar back on because she hates it so much, and I'm sure she'll just take it right back off.

Does anyone have suggestions for keeping the collar on in a way that won't frighten her, or else another way to keep her from licking the wound?

The only advice I can give is to keep trying the collar. We had a cat with an abscess on the top of one of hind legs that had to be drained. She hated the collar and managed to get it off three times before she finally gave up trying. Every time she got the collar off we put it back on. Now she was not a happy cat and mostly laid around looking miserable, but her wound healed. By the last day or so she had gotten quite good at jumping on furniture with her collar on - at first it threw off her balance. One thing I would say is if you use a covered litter box take the cover off, our Jenny could not get in and out of the litter box with the collar on. Good luck - hope Gorgeous is all better soon!

Thank you for your advice! It's good to know your cat accepted it after a while, and I hope Gorgeous will get used to it as well. I'm something of a pushover in things like this. It makes me feel like a terrible person to put it back on (or rather, she made me feel like a terrible person when I put it on! ), but I know it's for her own good.

The litterbox isn't covered—I tried a covered box once, and none of the cats used it, so it was removed. The thing that worries me is that she likes sleeping under my bed where it's cool—it's 95f right now with the fan running—but the bed is too low for her to get under it comfortably wearing the collar. I'll crack open the closet for her, and see if she'll take to sleeping in there for a couple of days.

The abscess does seem to be healing, but I haven't been able to apply the cream to it as regularly as I should, precisely because she keeps trying to lick it off.