Calpol Night A Warning

[AshleyJB]

Hi - I apologise in advance for this long post. About 2 months ago, my then 9 month old daughter had a temp. and a cold and she was not settling so I gave her calpol night. It said on the bottle for 2+months so I felt happy giving it to her, however she had terrible side effects, excessive sleep (really bad sleeoing until 4pm from the previous night), lethargic, shaky, no appetite...basically I worked out that it was the Calpol that wasdoing this to her...I then found out that Calpol Night has a new age limit of 2+Years. I was furious and got in contact with Calpol right away, they were very intersted in my daughters symptoms and I had to fill in a large questionnaire about her symptoms which would be sent to their Pharmacy Head Office in USA...I then wanted to know what they had done to alert other families as Im sure many like me would have the bottle at home with the old packaging on it...they never answered this question...however on www.dailymail.co.uk today there is an article about it and advising parents that the age has changed...I feel that this is such an important issue I wanted all you mums to be aware and to tell as many mums as you can, that regardless of what Calpol Night says on the bottle its NOT suitable for babies!!!

[Saltire]

You may be interested in this
from the BBC website

[WibblyPigRocks]

A similar thing happened to me with Medised - a well-meaning friend with older children gave me a bottle when DS was born and I gave him some at 3 months. Fortunately, he had no side effects but when I told a pharmacist, he gave me hell!!

I believe the Medised situation is/was heavily debated on here.

[Seona1973]

the guidance changed almost a year ago. Toddler Cough medicine banned. I bought some on Friday and it still has the 3+ months on it but my ds is over 2 anyway and I was aware that the age had changed on it.

[AshleyJB]

Dear Seona - I know it changed over a year ago, the makers told me that, I have been in direct correspondence with them over this...not all parents will know of the change and will still be giving their young babies this medicine....its just been very badly handled.....

[AshleyJB]

The article you sent is about cough medicine and not directly about Calpol night, they did nothing to let the public know about this....

[LaTrucha]

The problem is the company are still sellin git with 2 months+ on the box, hence the mixed messages. I was almost sold it in Boots for a 6 month old until a more experienced member of staff stepped in. I guess the company have been given some grace but a YEAR later? I think it is culpable on their part.

[poppy34]

I think calpol night (or calcold as now is) is almost the same thing as medised. Does anyone know what the issue was - I thought it was people using it to get babies to sleep and there were some overdose incidents.

and hte thing in the news is about ineffective cough medecines (not a surprise for anyone who has ever wasted cash on this) not about calpol/medised.

[SlightlyMadScotland]

The company are not still making it with 2months+ on the box - or at least they sholdn't be!. I think they were given until about Oct/Nov to change the packaging. Not sure on teh rules WRT unsold stock though.

Calpol night is included in that article Seona linked to. It is just not explicit. It is one of the 117 products affected.

There was a reasonable amount of publicity at the time (almost a year ago) - but the main onus was put on pharmacists to prevent teh sale to parents for use in under 2's. Again that doesn't impact that which parents already had in their homes.

[SlightlyMadScotland]

Calpol night is identiccal to medised (I think).

The reason for removing it for under 2's is:

Potential for overdose of paracetamol when combined with other meds
Potential for overdose with anti-histamine when combined with other meds
The cough part is pretty ineffective anyway so the risk benefit was in favour of risk because of other 2 points
The dosage instructions for babies quite fragile because babies of the same age can vary in weight dramatically (and effective dose is ctually based on weight not age)...thing about teh fac that normal newborns have a range fo about 5 1/2lb to 11lb - essentially a 2 fold difference. The correct dose for one is not correct for another. As a child gets older the relative difference is less so dosage instructions are more relevant for a bigger proportiion of teh population.
Finally (but I suspect unofficially) it was in part due to abuse by some parents in aiding their child to sleep because of the sedating side-effect of anti-histamines.

[LaTrucha]

Oh well, they were when I was offered it but that was late last year.

[Seona1973]

Six baby cough medicines pulled. This is another article about the same thing. It seems to relate to overdose and a few deaths that may be related to cough medicines.

[Seona1973]

they still sell them with 3+ months on the box but you cant buy them direct from the shelf and have to go through the pharmacist who should check the age of the child you are buying it for. They did ask me how old ds was anyway.

[AshleyJB]

The letters I have received from the Group that make Calpol make very interesting reading.......

[AshleyJB]

Calpol night is not one of the cough medicines......

[SlightlyMadScotland]

Calpol Night is on the official list {http://www.mhra.gov.uk/home/idcplg?IdcService=GET_FILE&dDocName=CON014450&RevisionSelectionMethod=L atestReleased\issued in 2008} of labels to be changed to 2+.

It is the diphenhydramine as an active ingrediant for which the license has change. All brands and formualtions are affected.

[SlightlyMadScotland]

link