Refusal to take calpol.Help!

[Howmanytimes]

For the past few days DS has had a high temperature peaking at 40 C. He is 25 months and absolutely refuses to take any medicine (Calpol or nurofen) we have tried everything from hiding it in orange juice (sometimes works) to swaddling him and squirting it into the back of his throat (doctors suggestion) and not particularly effective, we end up wearing most of it! Has anyone else had to deal with this and if so what did you do.

Have you tried the syringe airoplane approach?

Yes, it was a nightmare, so distressing when they obviously feel sick with the temp. Now we use supposotries and it has changed everything.

call your out of hours and ask them to do you a prescription you can collect tonight...

paracetamol supposotries btw, you give every 4 hours like you would the calpol

have you tried tricking him(just a mad suggestion) dd is 14 and has sn ans the only way I can get her to take her night time meds is to trick her, so I will say something that makes her open her mouth and in it goes, or I blackmail her with chocolate(just random suggestions)

Yes, suppositories.

Are you also sponging him with a tepid flannel (face, back of neck and torso) to bring temp down?

paracetamol suppositories are a ridiculous price and I had to be paediatrician to prescribe them to us even though both dcs were having febrile convulsions at the time.

When I talked to my new GP about DD not taking meds orally he wrote me a prescription and we never looked back.

DD had also had a febrile convulsion after me explaining to another GP many times that she was retching up her calpol. I really would have rather avoided it - if only I had known before there was an alternative.

Tepid sponging and gentle fanning are also very comforting for such a high fever. Is it a virus?

How about putting it in a cup of Nesquik?

My DD did this for a while too. We ended up putting it in her milk and she jsut drank it. We didn't tell her it was in there btw, as there is now way it would have gone down.

Mine post should have read "beg" paediatrician for them.

DD wouldn't take medicine but she was fine with tablets. The DC's had managed to have 4 fcs between them within two weeks, which was why were seeing a paed, and he still was not happy about prescribing them

Thankfully they bought out calpol melts and I used to give DD half of one of those.

My DD used to be the same and it was a nightmare!

Iremember her being ill when we had the plumbers in fixing the boiler. He looked horrified at hearing her screams when I was holding her down and squirting it in her mouth.
So horrible upsetting them like that when they are already ill.

I was told to syringe it into the side of her cheek which did help less to get spat back up.
We tried both calpol and the nurofen thinking one might taste better.

Oddly enough around 14mths she stopped the screaming and happily stucked it out the end of a syringe. Cant really think of any reason why though which isnt much help to you - sorry!

Being abit older would DS drink a disolvable paractamol?

I second suppository paracetamols and I didn't find it too difficult persuading the GP to prescribe me some.

I know it sounds odd, bu the only way we could get dd to take meds at 2 was to cover the top of the spoon with chopped garapes, so she ae the grapes and medicine together. I didnt expect it to work, but it did!

Had huge problems with DD1. Even when in hospital with meningitis aged 3, she refused all attempts to get calpol inside her.

Doctors sent me home to get the dissovable paracetamol we had been using and the fruit juice to drop them in. The only thing she would take

I used to give it to DS in one of those fruit slurper/pouch things. I'd open it and take some of the puree out then dribble the Calpol in (very tiresome work!) and then swirl it all around and put the lid back on. Would then present it to DS as a new, unopened bottle that couldn't possibly have any nasty medicine in.

My dd absolutely will not take oral medicines. If forced she will vomit it back up again instantly. We also can't hide it anywhere.

Good to know about suppositories in case she's ill in the future.

Interesting. I gather suppositories are the norm in France

yes and Italy

Paralink suppositories.

I get suppositories on prescription for DD2 who is also a nightmare about medicine or sometimes get away with half a paracetamol ground up in milk if she is up for a drink.

The price of suppositories are a lot cheaper in europe. Over here they are £20 for 10 which wasn't even 2 days supply.

In europe they are 3 or 4 euros

We use paracetamol suppositories for DD2 (9 months) as she has reflux and therefore an over-sensitive gag reflex which makes her vomit if we try to force her to take something she doesn't want. Suppositories are a much kinder way of giving medicine to babies. She barely notices!

They are very expensive if you buy them over the counter (because they aren't popular in the UK) and so are also very expensive to the NHS which is why GPs are reluctant to prescribe them but they will if you make a fuss.

A better idea is to stock up when you're in France/Germany/anywhere else as they are so common in these countries they cost almost nothing to buy over the counter.

Thank you so much for all your replies, they are really helpful. It's also nice to know that we're not the only ones to have to deal with this. We are actually old hands at dealing with high temperatures as DD who is now 6 had a febrile convulsion when she was 18 months old. She gets ludicrously high temperatures with the slightest thing even just a cold! DS is much stroppier though and has a will of iron! Doctor says it's tonsillitis and was not much help with the calpol nightmare, he just kept saying you must get him to take it. So far we've had most success with hiding it in orange juice and timing the doses to co-incide with mealtimes. The nights are the most difficult. I work with a french woman who goes back to see her parents frquently so I'll ask her about the suppositories. Thank you so much for all your replies I really appreciated them.