Helping Your Child Take Medication

Cody and I were talking about what we should blog about next.....it seemed natural to discuss medication since that was the next step for us after getting diagnosed. Cody will post his own thoughts on this later this evening for all the kids out there to read. When you come on here with your child, if you scroll down, on the right side, there will be a section titled "find posts by category" then underneath you will see one of the links titles "A Kid's Perspective" - this will include ALL of Cody's posts so when your child is reading on here (and hopefully sometime commenting to Cody) they will see ONLY Cody's posts.

Anyways, back to medication. Here is an article on ways to help your child take their medication (if they've been prescribed any yet - not all are).

Pill Swallowing: Helping Your Child

Some children have difficulty swallowing pills and capsules.

*The easiest approach is to convert the medicine to a liquid form. Empty out the capsules or crush the pills. You can do this with any pills except slow-release or enteric-coated pills. (Check with your pharmacist or physician if you are uncertain what you can do.)

*Slow-release capsules can be emptied as long as the contents are swallowed without chewing. Since capsules usually contain medicines with a bitter taste, the contents need to be mixed with a sweet food.

*Pills are usually made as a convenient alternative to the liquid form, and they may not taste bad. Pills can be crushed between two spoons. Crushing is made easier by first moistening the pill with a few drops of water and letting it soften for 15 minutes.

*Place the pill or capsule far back on the tongue and have your child quickly drink water or Kool-Aid through a straw. If your child concentrates on swallowing (even gulping) the liquid, the pill will follow downstream without a hitch.

Model for your child the steps in swallowing a pill:

*Place a pill on the back of your tongue.
*Keep the tongue flat.
*Take liquid in the mouth.
*Tilt the head backward slightly.
*Swallow.

Here is a link to that article
http://www.aboutkidshealth.ca/HealthAZ/Pill-Swallowing-Helping-Your-Child.aspx?articleID=8784&categoryID=

Please check with your nephrologist first before doing any of them. We got permission to poke a hole in Cody's fish oil capsule and drain it into soda or juice. Two of the others are quite small and the prednisone he will sometimes swallow whole and sometimes break in half depending on his mood LOL.