Unfortunately, these have been particularly difficult pills. There is no coating whatsoever, so they start dissolving pretty quick. And according to Sammy - they taste horrible. Watching the poor kid, I believe it! He gives a little shudder when I mention taking them. We started cutting them in half, hoping he could get them down quicker, but it didn't help at all. Just seemed to prolong the misery.
After about 4 days of taking them 3 times a day, he was strongly opposing them. I hated watching him even attempt. So I stopped forcing him and called the doc to see if we could get the liquid. Unfortunately the whole message didn't get back and forth before the long weekend, so I didn't hear back until Tuesday. I read up about the medication online and found a site that said drinking them down with milk or orange juice is a big help, but no, he wouldn't be talked into that.
Then the creativity wheels started turning, and genius struck. The pills don't have a coating, right? Well, I'll make one!
I melted some chocolate chips and dipped two of the pills in that, and dipped two others in Karo syrup. The chocolate was nicely set up after about 5 minutes in the freezer. I talked him into trying it (proves how bad they were when I almost couldn't get him to try chocolate pills!). He decided to try milk with it and got it down with no fuss! Hooray!
I don't know how soon he'll be able to try the Karo syrup ones. After several hours of sitting out the outside is getting drier but it is still squishy on the inside. For quick and easy, chocolate is the way to go.
If the pills get too big when you dip them, cut them in half first and then dip.
P.S. I didn't call it beautifully genius. Jamie did. :)
P.P.S. After trying both he liked the chocolate ones best, and since they were definitely the easiest we stuck with that. Be warned - chocolate pills are tempting. At one point a younger daughter tried one, but unfortunately she chewed it and still got the yuck. I called poison control and they said it's a safer drug for her to try, but in the event that the same thing happens, definitely call.
We had a struggle just like this with my little girl when she had to take pills. We tried stuffing them in marshmallows but after a few seconds, her little tongue could find the pill and spit it right back out. I remember stuffing her mouth full of marshmallows so that she couldn't figurine out which one had the pill. After a couple of minutes of her moving all the marshmallows around and swallowing we asked her to open her mouth. All that was left was the pill.
ReplyDeleteWe finally opened up the capsule (lucky it was a capsule) and spread the contense in her peanut butter sandwich and she didn't even notice. The rest of that pill swallowing time we had to find things to hid the powder in to get her to take her medicine.
For you, Chocolate was a great idea and it worked!