in not wanting them to raise the age of cough/cold remedies to 6???

[Natt82]

They are now going to raise medised/tixylix etc to the age of 6!

Apparently they dont work. I know many parents (myself included) that would argue that they do in fact work - both my boys have them only when horrendously full of phlem and snot, but they work so well at giving them some rest.

Surely raising the packaging to dosage over 6 is going to cause more problems? Parents who have used it in the past will continue to use it, yet wont have the correct dosage instructions.

news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Cough-And-Cold-Medicines-For-Children-List -Of-Doubtful-Drugs-By-MHRA/Article/200903115231743

AIBU to want to keep buying this stuff for my 31mo and 1yr old and going out today to stockpile the stuff?

Natt x

all these stories of godawful colds makes me wonder how I ever got through the early years with the dds without sedating them.

.

In fact I think that the only over the counter drugs I use are painkillers (paracetamol, ibuprofen, co-codamol), olbas oil, cansetan, and a savlon type cream.

Anything else I wait for GP to prescribe - in part because often OTC meds don't tend to be powerful enough to warrant use. If the condition/symptoms are not self limiting - or not tolerable without intervention then I go to GP because chances are I need a prescription strength med to deal with it.

yeah, I've always done the same, mad. Except I've never heard of olbas oil.

Tis like Vicks - menthol/eucalyptus for overnight relief of mucous and coughs - just stick a drop on a tissue in the pillowcase(which is what Medised et. al. claim to do)

Quite likes this conversation with Pointy as she is not trying to defend a different position

Never used medised, but use Tixylix on DS. It does help him get through the night more peacefully. However, I do not give it every night, maybe every 3rd if it is a long drawn out illness, just to enable him to get 'some' restful sleep. The body needs sleep to heal.

Vicks vaporub gives him rashes, and karvol starts a retching reaction in me - can't tolerate the smell at all.

It's all well and good to tell parents not to give the child anything, but if you send your child to nursery at a young age for the first 6 - 12 months they will catch everything going and will be constantly sick. How is it ok to let them suffer continuously for months on end????!!!!!

yes, vicks on a hanky. I do that. It is nice being in agreement with you, mad.

SadMarg - if you can tollerate the smell of Vicks smear some on a tissue and put it close (but not too close IYSWIM) to him at night. It doesn't have to touch him.

sad, I never saw that as sickness and suffering. That's maybe the difference.

Nods sagely with pointy again...

I know that if I have a really bad headache or feel really unwell, a painkiller is going to help me. Don't see why children shouldn't get the same kindness, personally.

Painkillers are not being taken away....

no, true

I have done the vicks on the hanky, it does help but it is certainly not enough at times. (I use the stuff like mad myself, when I suffer sinusitis especially!!!).

My DS suffered for months on end with chest infections, tonsillitis, ear infections, (concurrently, consecutively and repeatedly!!!) on top of the normal colds, flu and tummy bugs that were going around. All of the 'muck' from the infections kept running down into his chest at night and made him cough all night long. This was to the point of my GP telling me to take him out of nursery not because he was infectious, but that his immunity was so low that he was catching everything going and he needed a break to just get a little better.

So not only was he sick for months on end, but there were real peaks of suffering for him, and I think its cruel to not occasionally let him have some sleep during those peaks. As I said, it's not like I dosed him up every night, at the most twice a week just so that he could get some respite.

There is no way he would take honey and lemon, doubt I could get him to take it now either without tying him down to something and forcing it down his throat (and I am being literal here, he has gone for absolute weeks on end without eating anything - at one point he lost 2 kgs and we DID have to force him to eat until we got his weight back up a little bit).

I guess I at least have the fall back of insisting that the GP prescribes something for him and then the chemist has to sell it no matter what, but it still seems like a huge bother for something that has always been available, and is freely available in other countries.

But the medicines which have been withdrawn form use for you DS are not appropriate in the circumstances which you list. They will not help a achest infection or tonsilitus. In these instances he needs ABs. They do not help an ear infection either (and contrary to popular belief neither do ABs in something like 70% of cases). These conditions need treating by prescription only meds - which will of course still be available.

For colds and flu the benefit is at best questionable and they certainly won't help for an upset tummy.

Oh and not all of these meds are available in other countries. I am not sure the latest guidlinds for under 6's but I know that the UK were years behind many countries in changing these meds to over 2's only a year ago.

Nothing works on my dcs 5 and 2. Nothing

Not medised, tixylix, piriton (maybe once) ...

I can safely say that morphine works very nicely indeed on dd post-op.

Yes, he does need antibiotics, sometime (and he did get it, sometimes). But it is the 'cough' which keeps him up at night for weeks on end and leaves him with a severe lack of sleep. The other medication helps him get some sleep at least once or twice a week. As I said, the 'muck' draining down when he is lying down is what makes him cough. Suppressing it for long periods of time would be harmful, but suppressing it for just one night a week does help. Everyone needs SOME sleep.

And no, I didnt' care if I had to sit with him for most of the night, even though I felt I was going mad through lack of sleep. It was HIS sleep that I was concerned about. The body heals when it gets a chance to sleep.

does the body heal when it gets a chance to sleep?

The difference I found with Medised when dd has a bad cough is that when she takes it and coughs all night she doesn't wake up.
When she doesn't take it, she wakes up everytime she coughs.
When she gets up in the morning she still has the cough, but she is able to get through the day because she has slept the night before.
When she doesn't take it the next day she is twice as poorly as she was the night before because she hasn't slept.

they do 'work' but they are not good for you. The mucus is the body's way of getting rid of illness, when it gets dried up with medecine it just gets stored as toxins in cells, or something like that.

anyway, of course children are much less able to tolerate these symptoms, but I'm glad that the medical profession is raising the age of medecines.

They are now advertising that anti biotics are bad for you in the doctors surgery, after using them for 50 years. I think that is a massive step forward.

I find it fairly interesting how varied people feel about the effectiveness of the cough medicines. Our DD has CF and suffers pretty badly with colds etc., but her consultants have always said to never use these medicines - not just because of her CF but because on any child they believe them to be of no medical benefit and can in their opinion protract a cold/cough.

We rely heavily on steaming- sitting DD in a very steamy bathroom, with a couple of drops of olbas oil put in the hot water (and drops of olbas oil on her bedding), and we're considering buying a humidifier for her room too. These certainly seems to make her cough more productive but also bizarrely eases it at the same time. I also try to incorporate mucous-reducing foods into her meals- garlic, onion and ginger are excellent (with garlic acting as an antiviral too) and she has lots of soups with these in. Who knows how much it really helps but it can't do any harm. Manuka honey is good too, she'd eat it by the spoonful! Ironically in winter we are told to ensure she has at least 30 mins exercise outside every day, no matter what the weather (so long as well wrapped up) to help get the mucous shifted from her chest, and lots of bouncing on trampolines etc. I do the same with my eldest and am sure this helps him shift colds/coughs too.

Anyway, those are my rambling thoughts on alternatives to cough medicines! Good luck all those suffering with their DCs this winter, it sure has been a long one.

Here here JumpingJellyFish.

that;s interesting, jellyfish.

I think this is the nanny state - but then I am very pro nannies. Banning these is honest, sensible and practical IMO. Like most nannies.

"I ask you this - if an anti-histamine was so good at relaxing the airways why is it not aroutine asthma therapy? Because it isn't actually that potent is the answer."

Dd1 who had a recurrent asthma related nighttime cough, was prescribed Piriton (along with her asthma medication), by the hospital paediatrician. It did work, but I guess it might have been the sedating effect (although if she had it during the day, it didn't make her sleepy).