colourants additives and flavourings in children's medicine

[chobbler]

Is it unreasonable to want my child to take a medicine that isn't piled full of additives and colourants just so it can be sugar free? This new one looks and smells like lucozade- stains teeth and clothing and she hates it because it is too sweet.

I know they have to sweeten them to hide the taste but really can't they produce one that doesn't make you want to gag!
Whatever happened to the simple things in life like polio vaccines dropped on a sugar lump.

It isn't ideal I know but I've had to hide it in fruit juice (checked with pharmacy before I did) in the hope that I won't have the two hour battle I had this morning.

but steaming after two weeks of battles six times a day.

Children's medicine with sugar (equivalent to 1 teaspoon) = all dentists up in arms.
I'm sure you could find medicine with neither sugar or sweeteners but would your DC take it?

You can get medicines which dont have things added. I purposly buy medinol which has no colours in rather than calpol.

However, when it comes to prescribed medicine i work on if he needs it he takes it no matter how much we have to fight and at that point the ingredients of it are the last thing on my mind!

I know medinol still has some stuff added btw just less!

It would taste worse without additives. Some drugs, ie the active ingredient have such a strong, vile taste that it is difficult to mask.

Have you tried using an oral syringe and aiming for the inside back of the cheek then following up with water or something she likes?

Give a small amount of something the child does like just BEFORE the medicine (such as a tic tac mint, or chocolate, or a few crisps), give med while the food is till in mouth, follow instantly with another mouthful of preferred taste.

And use a medecine syringe rather than a spoon, as far back in the mouth as possible without choking her.

It doesn't really bother me if it means the dc's will take it. If it's just this one type that's too sweet for your dc-could the pharmacy provide an alternative that's a different taste?

thnx for syringe idea, will get one tomorrow, don't think she will want to share the dogs! backtobedlam- I know where you are coming from but this IS the alternative one :( It would be just nice to not have to pin DD down to get her to take meds. anyway another dose due, may have before trying.

How often do they have to take them anyway? Blimey, if a child has to take something every day 3 times a day then i would question it. If not, whats the worry?

Forgot to add... for the rest of their lives.

The sweeteners I understand - the flavourings, too, though some of those seem as nasty as what they're hiding (DS1 was prescribed nystatin for oral thrush, last year and we renamed it "nastytin")

I don't understand why medicines have to be pink, though. I do everything possible to avoid artificial colours in food and even most sweet manufacturers have cottoned onto this general dislike, so why is it OK to still dye children's medicines? I've also noticed that a lot of them have maltitol in, so whatever problem DS1 has soon has diarrhoea added to it.

urggh sorbitol don't get me started on that one.

I am totally with you. DS was prescribed a medicine a few months ago when he was 7 months old. Soon after I gave it to him he started vomiting and came up in a rash. After a bit of research it turns out that the artificial red colouring in the medicine has been banned in America, Canada and Australia because it can cause serious allergic reactions, like vomiting and a rash.

I can almost understand adding flavourings, but I asked the pharmacist the next day why they have to add colourings, and she said it's because "who wants to drink a brown medicine?" For goodness' sake, it's a medicine, who cares what it looks like?

So I think YANBU!

When my first child was born I was adamant he wouldn't have any sugared or sweetened medicines and thought "well he won't really know what tastes nice or not." Then he had an awful ear infection and kept spitting out the ABs. I found mixing it in the syringe with Marks and Spencer vanilla custard was just enough to get him to swallow it. It was obviously the small hours and desperation which led to this discovery.
In general I think they should be sugar free but I'd love it if there was a special option of full sweetened loveliness!