Thursday, April 10, 2008

Help!

Alexis just started taking a medication that only comes in a pill. She has to take it twice a day, and no matter how many times she tries she can not swallow it. It is a capsule, so we have been pouring it into pudding, juice, and hot chocolate. These things have not worked. She gags on the pudding because it gives it a weird taste, it doesn't dissolve in the juice, and it kind of does in the hot chocolate, but a lot of it just sticks to the sides. She hates yogurt, so I haven't tried that. Does anyone have a clever idea of a ways to hide medications in food? Or any idea on how to teach her to swallow pills. It has been torture getting her to take this. She was just diagnosed with ADD, and we are starting her out on a herbal medication that is supposed to work really well. I really want it to work because I have done a lot of research on the stimulants such as Ritalin, and Adderal and all the side effects are scary! Any advice anyone has would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!

7 comments:

Britt said...

I have the same problem still! I've never been able to swallow pills. I used to chew them.. . it's pretty gross. Now I just take them with a meal or something solid like bread or crackers. I chew the food first and then pop in pill in when I'm ready to swallow. As long as my tongue can't detect the pill in the food I'm fine. It's crazy and embarrassing :-{
Good luck!

Kari said...

I've never had to give my kids regular pills so I'm not much help there, but Parker and I both have ADD so I know that all to well. I'm all for meds when they are needed just because I can tell a big difference in myself when I'm on them and my self esteem is a lot better. I was diagnosed till I was 20 and sometimes I wonder if it had been picked up earlier of those teen years could have been a little less crazy for me. Anyways read Driven to Distraction, its a great book, and Delivered from distration the 2nd one is really good too.
Good luck with the herbal supplements, let me know how they work for you, we haven't put Parker on meds yet, we're going to wait till he's in school to see about doing that, but I agree that the other meds can sound scary with little ones. So if those work for you that would be great, but if not, the meds are worth the risk in my opinion. But thats just me, there are lots of different opinions out there on it.

Katie said...

I couldn't swallow pills up until like a year ago. lol. Just have her put it on the back of her tongue and drink and drink lots of water till it goes down. thats how i managed to do it! lol. You could always try and make a smoothie or something, and just put the pill into that.

Z. Marie said...

Does she eat applesauce? That could work, especially if she'd also take it with cinnamon (which could mask the taste).
If Alexis is anything like Laura these days, reasoning with her isn't going to work. It would be great if you could just put it on the back of her tongue and get her to swallow it, but somehow I can't see that happening.

Z. Marie said...

Or ice cream -- although you'd probably only want to do that once a day ...

Linda said...

I had a dentist tell me to put it in a spoonful of frozen grape juice. It has to be grape juice and it has to be in the concentrated, frozen form. He said that grape was the only one that could mask the pill's flavor, but that was 27 years ago when grape, apple and orange were pretty much the only flavors available in frozen. (Maybe let the other two kids have a spoonful at the same time so they all think they are getting a treat.)

Melissa said...

A friend of mine in High School couldn't swallow pills easily, but learned how to by drinking with a straw. The suction forces the pill to be swallowed, so if she can stand the taste of the pill for a few seconds...