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DD has strep throat. AFTER being in hospital for viral-induced wheeze and trying to get her to take Prednisolone (which made her gag and vomit) I am now having to inflict penicillin on her. I have phone the hospital for advice and their attitude is "She has to have it" quite rightly, I get that, but they seems to think the "by any means necessary" route works.

I know for a fact that physically pinning DD down and forcing her to take it will not work as she will just vomit it back up, For whatever reason. Which is what has just happened, and I'll have some bruises to remind me.

The only two doses out of 7 attemots have been when she is half asleep.I have quickly followed with distractipn and ibuprofen and averted any dramas.

The rest of the time its pointless. She is determined and very strong and right now I am so fucked off with the whole thing I have had to go away while I stop shaking.

I have the patience. I would talk to DD all night if it would help. I would take any amount of bruises if she actually swallowed the fucking stuff and kept it down. She will not.

I have tried hiding it in food and drink, tried bribes, tried fucking role-play. Ice cream worked once but there was lots going and she hasnt much of an appetite anyway.

I am doubly pissed off because she actually ate something today and now she has thrown it back up again.

She will take Nurofen. She takes Cetirizine. She even takes Abidec!!! And she would probably take this stuff as well if it wasn't dayglo fucking orange with an equally rank smell and taste!!!

Even making it clear/colourless would help. But no, let's signpost the horrible medicine by making it glow in the fucking dark !!!

Sorry for rant, I can't be mad at her, she is four, so I am venting on here.
I understand this is AIBU, so if you're going to give me a pasting, could you please add some tips on how you managed to give reluctant DC medicine???

Sorry for typos and shit grammar

I feel for you, i hope you dont get a pasting! Cant really help you though except maybe bribery would help. Big chocolate bar if you take it?

YANBU
And hugs to u and ur dd.

I'm a nanny, one child who was on verge of being hospitalised only got medicine down him by mouthful of ice cream then medicine then ice cream. Was recommended by the nurse at the gp's. once he started feeling better, he was better at taking it, but when swallowing hurt so much he dribbled instead of swallowing, ice cream numbed his mouth and tasted nice iyswim?
Hope ur dd is better soon.

YANBU.

I sympathise completely, having had a week of trying to pin down 18mo DC2 and squirt antibiotics and eye drops into him. Mostly failing.

And then there's my 4yo DC1, the one who has eczema so bad her hands bleed, but will she let me put cream on her? Will she heck...even if I pin her down and put it on her, she goes into the bathroom, gets a washcloth and towel and washes it all off! (I know it's not oral medicine, but there has to be an easier way to do this, surely?)

Huge sympathies here, Penicillin makes my DS sick too, no matter how we try it do he always has to have slightly less effective stuff which he can stomach but it means his illness goes on longer than it needs to

As the mother of a child who has had to take numerous courses of AB and AV for various serious infections. I can say I completely and utterly agree with you.

Her IV medicine in hospital was easier that oral and I say that sincerely hand on heart. Our consultant said it is made very cheaply and no effort is made for it to taste "good " at all.

Our GP once said that he had no idea why the children's hospital insisted on sending people home with the day-glo orange stuff. He replaces it with some nice banana medicine.

With the eye drops, our nursery taught us to put DD on her side then put the drop on the edge of her nose and roll her on to her back. The drop then goes into the eye easily and with minimal fighting.

I completely agree. Ds is only 2 and it is more or less physically impossible for us to get any kind of medicine in to him. He is meant to be having antibiotics twice a day at the moment, and it is more or less impossible to get it into him. We hVe tried every tactic under the sun, but he is just getting worse at taking them. I know he isn't getting the full course, and so I worry that it will end up only half fighting the infection, and making it worse.

There must be a better way of getting medicine into children!

The last time DS had to have the rank orange anti biotics, he was 4 and would be sobbing at having to take it. I got round it by bribing him with a Mini Egg (was around easter time) for every spoon of medicine he took. So he'd have anti biotic meds - mini egg, then ibuprofen/paracetamol meds - mini egg. That was the only way he would let me give it to him.

Isn't an anti-overdose precaution? if it tastes nasty, a small child isn't going to guzzle the whole bottle if they get their hands on it. That said, calpol is sweet so I could be on completely the wrong track
Ahh Poppy I wonder if your DD is like me - I've eczema all my life on and off, and I always found that cream hurts. It stings and burns like buggery, and none of it ever actually seemed to work anyway. I can remember kicking and screaming and being held down by my parents while they plastered it on, and sobbing, and mam crying, and they just did as the doctor said and I suffered for it.
Ordinary antiseptic like savlon or similar, to stop it getting infected, or any moisturising cream at all that she will tolerate is just as good as the steroid and cortisone creams, different ones affect different people in different ways, but please, listen to her if she says it hurts going on...

Try this....get the medicine and mix it with icing sugar. Squidge it on top of a fairy cake with a sweet on top. This usually works cos my kids eat the icing first

YANBU. My dd had anti-biotics for an insect bite that got infected last year. She used to gag at medicine time, I thought 'she must be exaggerating, it can't be that bad' until I tasted it and it was absolutely vile! My solution was to have a haribo sweet ready and give her that to take the taste away

Is it amoxycillin? If so, you can get it in at least 2 different flavours. I remember a day glow orange one (which was what made me think of it) but also a yellow one which I think was lemon flavoured. I remember my children liked the yellow one so much they were wanting to have it even when it wasn't prescribed for them.

It sounds like you have Phenoxymethylpenicillin it does taste faitly bad. Ask them to change it to Amoxicillin when you take prescription to chemist ask for the Bannana flavoured version. It is important you dont put your DC off meds for life.

my boys are like that, nightmare. i find the best way of doing it is with a syringe, squirted fast into the side of their mouths. I think going to the gp to request an alternative flavour is a good idea too.

DD has had this for her Asthma before and you are right it is absolutely awful taste. I add juice to it and get her to take it with a straw to the back if her mouth to hopefully miss her taste buds and hold her nose. Didnt know you could ask for an alternative.
Hope you dd feels better soon

I remember this stuff, expert AB taker ds2 hated it. We did positive visualisation - "angry birds" medicine to zap nasty throat pigs, followed by a strong Ribena chaser. Administered in nurofen syringe which he pushed plunger so was in control. I tried it, it is really bitter and disgusting, stains terribly and not nice when spat in your face. Good luck OP !!!! Seek alternative... But it did address the infection quick!

Yes we still have a stained wall from a particularly bad week on ABs 3 yrs ago when it was spat out at some considerable force by DS
Ask for alternative. We got one because we got through a bottle (on the furnishings etc) before the course was finished

recall I have considered the icing sugar/cake idea. DD likes lemon drizzle so if i could get lemon flavoured meds it might just work.
Its the bloody prednisolone that started it. DD had chocolate buttons, digestive buttons, her favourite juice, but nothing took the taste away so the whole lot came back up! That was dayglo pink FFS.
So at hearing how cheaply its made and no effort is made to improve the taste.
Thank you for your support. Wish there was a Waitrose-type equivalent to this crap where you can specify a more pleasant and palatable option for your DC?.

That would be nice

Is it that amoxicillin, coz that stuff is fecking vile, remember that as a kid, my sister had to have that and she hated it, my DD dont like it either.

I know she's only 4 but as she hates it so much would she be willing to have tablets instead? (Ironicaly just after typing that line my mum came in and reminded me that I've been avoiding taking horrible tasting medication-and I'm an adult!). There's a great website aimed at parents of children with cancer called Squirrel Tales, there lots of parents share how they got their kids taking horrible liquids or teaching them to have tablets at a very young age. If I can't take them for some reason (even some tablets taste awful) then I have a big spoon of jelly, poke the tablet into the middle and swallow it down, you don't even feel the tablet.
I hope things become easier soon

It's because people are so utterly paranoid about sugar so they're all sugar free now. I got the sugar free calpol at first until I tasted it, then quickly moved on to the regular one with sugar. Why not give people a choice? If you have to use chocolate/icing sugar/ice cream to get it down them surely it defeats the point!

The advice from parents http://www.squirreltales.com/parents/medicine.html

My GP would find me something else as standard penicillin was banana flavoured and bananas are the one thing on the planet I truly cannot eat.

Not that any of his alternatives were nice and I was delighted when I learnt to swallow pills.

I think the basic problem is that penicillin is secreted by a fungi and it tastes of mould. If you accidentally suck an adult tablet it is vile.

The medicine makers try to cover it up with strong flavours and they don't seem to succeed!

I always get strange looks when asking for Calpol- not the sugar free one please

YANBU!

Was it soluble prednisolone? I got given that once as an adult because it was all A&E had available & it was absolutely FOUL. I mixed it with squash & had to hold my nose to get it down, gagging throughout. Made even harder because the wee small of the friend I was staying with was very upset that I had Such Nasty Medicine... At 4 could she maybe cope with the tablets? They are very wee, the 5mg ones & the enteric coated ones taste of sugar, basically.

I think a lot of the official reason for the disgusting taste of medications is to reduce the risk of overdose. Am pretty sure the fact they've no real motivation to make it taste nicer has a lot to do with it too though!

Cannot believe people like Banana Medicine. I had it an awful lot as a child (all the chest infections all the time) & routinely used to weep over the foulness of the taste. I used to get raisins to take the taste away. It didn't work. Even now I sometimes get the remembered taste sneak up on me. Blech.

Have to say I find it particularly harsh that my antiemetic (domperidone) makes me gag. Just having it in my mouth, even under my tongue, produces a foul & lingering taste: I end up not taking it unless things are really REALLY bad & then trying to chuck it down my throat...

My mother used to have to chase me round the house & then sit on me to pin me down in order to administer eyedrops. Even as a toddler I felt bad for her as I knew it was upsetting for her but I absolutely couldn't stand the drops. Still can't bear things near my eyes now

Don't have any tips to add to those from other people, I'm afraid, but I do hope your daughter's better soon. Might it help to explain if she doesn't take the medicine she'll end up in hospital & they'll have to give IV antibiotics? That increased my medication compliance from being a tiny. It wasn't a threat or making the hospital into some kind of monsterthing, it was an honest explanation of what would happen if I didn't take the medication I needed to get better. It helped me to understand why it was so important I took The Disgusting Medicine[s] & actually gave me some sense of agency, which ill children often feel deprived of.

Had constant ear infections as a child and vividly remember all the medicines! I loved the 'banana medicine' but there was an aniseed flavoured one that made me gag. Also hated orange calpol. Remember my DB trying to take the horrible one instead of me as he loved aniseed!

No real suggestions, we used to have a teaspoon of jam after. Could you do it as a game where you 'swallow medicine' (something liquid from a spoon) too?? You ave my sympathies, hope she feels better soon.

FFS * have!

Why isn' the UK receptive to suppositories? My DD had some ABX a couple of weeks ago. She is almost 12 and had tonsillitis. She was given the revolting banana flavor stuff.
I had specifically asked for capsules, but the Dr decided she wouldn't cope.
I clearly remember her being given arse entry antibiotics when we lived in Oman.

The real problem is that the drug itself tastes vile and there is little that can be done to disguise the taste - drugs aren't deliberately made to taste awful; sweeteners and flavours are added to mask the taste, but they can only do so much.

Amoxicillin tends to be the best of the penicillins
Phenoxymethylpenicillin is pretty awful and needs to be taken on an empty stomach so shouldn't be given with snacks - a sweet drink is ok.
Flucloxacillin is bloody awful, but is the most effective anti-biotic for skin infections, impetigo etc and again needs to be taken on an empty stomach.

My DS who is 5 today (!!!) had to take daily prednisolone for a few months. They were the dissolvable ones. Never knew they were that bad because he used to just drink them down. Good luck anyway. He's now on something stronger once a week and we mix that with yoghurt. It's fine. Prior to this he used to scream and shout and throw up.

My DS who is 5 today (!!!) had to take daily prednisolone for a few months. They were the dissolvable ones. Never knew they were that bad because he used to just drink them down. Good luck anyway. He's now on something stronger once a week and we mix that with yoghurt. It's fine. Prior to this he used to scream and shout and throw up.

my DD1 has SN and a fear of needles and tubes. I have to confess that if I HAVE to get a medicine into her and she refuses, I just say 'needles and tubes'.

I don't feel bad about it because it's true and that's worse than a nasty taste.

I also can't believe the people who like the banana flavour. It's the one med I can't get into ds. Predisolone we syringe into the back of his mouth, he doesn't like it but.... It's banana amoxicillin he won't have in any disguise. He prefers day glo orange and with a syringe he will take it.

Much of it is because they were tested hundreds of years ago I those rank combinations of flavours and ingredients. If they change the flavour it counts as a new medicine and they have to go back through the testing process, and all the time and expense that takes up.

You have my sympathy OP, it's so stressful when you can't get them to take the medicine they need.

The only way I've been able to do it is with a syringe and even then it gets spat out. At least if they bat it away you don't lose the whole lot like with a spoon. I don't know why they can't improve the taste, but guess the active ingredients probably come through even when masked by flavours. Plus, they're probably restricted by regulations for sugar content and additives as well as interactions with the active ingredients.

Prednisolone in anything other than tablet form is grim, so I sympathise with your DD.

I second the icing sugar idea!

For pred to make it easier to take -

Make - small glass of blackcurrant squash, pull 3ml into a syringe and squirt it over the tablets in a small medicine pot. Leave to dissolve and then pull the mix into a syringe. Means its a relatively small amount and tastes a bit better

Thanks everyone, finally got to see doc today, and have been given prescription for amoxycillin BUT none in stock at local chemists so have to wait till tomorrow which is complete PITA as hoped to start DD on it today.
At least Ive got some ibuprofen into her in the meantime, and it looks like this medicine will be colourless, so that's something!

I sympathise. One of my earliest memories is battling with my parents as they tried to get me to take antibiotics. Highly traumatic all round.

There is no need for children's medicine to taste terrible. In the States pharmacies can add flavour shots to the liquid. They have several different ones to choose from; cherry, grape, bubble gum etc. I don't understand why this advancement hasn't made it across the ocean yet. Fine if the NHS doesn't want to pay for it, but why can't chemists have it as an option for an extra fee?

DS2 was taken in to hospital a couple of years ago (he was 5 at the time) and the antibiotic prescribed by the on call Doctor made him violently sick. I was fighting to get the next dose in to him when the Consultant came round. He took one look at me holding a screaming DS down while trying to administer the medicine and checked what had been prescribed. The Junior Doctor that had been on call was then told by the consultant in no uncertain terms not to prescribe that particular medicine to children on his ward because it tasted horrible . DS2 got a new medicine and the consultant made the Junior Doctor taste the medicine to see how nasty it actually was.

I have no advice but you have my sympathy Madame and I hope DD feels better soon.

Oh FFS. It wasn't amoxycillin. It was clarythromicin (sp?) and it's even more disgusting than the other stuff!
Back to the drawing board. Going to have a look at the Squirrel Tales website now.

How old is she OP?

I still remember the disgusting antibiotic I had to take for recurrent ear infections when I was 6 or 7 - I am 51 now!

It was bright red (may have been orange) and was so horrible that it made the milk that I was given afterwards to try to wash the flavour away taste disgusting

I am currently taking amoxicillin for a chest infection. Nice convenient easy-to-swallow capsules. Hate taking antibiotics and resisted going to the GP for 5 weeks about my crackly cough

She is five in April valium