Prednisolone toddler help

[Greentomatoes21]

Hi,

My son (2y 11 mths) has ongoing suspected asthma related issues. A couple of times he has been prescribed prednisolone. It is impossible to get into him. We have dissolved in smallest amount of liquid we can so he doesn't have much to swallow. We have mixed in yoghurt, which didn't mask it enough and resulted in a whole nasty petit filous to gag through. We syringe it into his cheek, far back. He seems to gag and vomit before even swallowing.

He usually takes other meds very well. Granted, this one is absolutely foul.

Please, any tips with masking the taste of this particular medicine?

Thanks.

Glucose syrup so it's an incredibly sweet medicine?

Have you tried mixing in some icing sugar? Or mixing it 50/50 with the raspberry syrup you pour on ice cream

Mix with honey maybe?

Sympathy. Here are my suggestions:

1. ask for the enteric coated tablets which don’t taste, and teach him to swallow them. I find they are reluctant to prescribe them at that age but you can try.
2. Ask for the non coated, but not dissolvable ones. Then you can cut them/crush them, and then wrap them in something like malt loaf, and try to get them to swallow that (ends up being bigger than the tablet in (1) but still worth a try).
3. Mix the dissolvable ones with jam/yogurt and bribe with something for afterwards.

i used to crush it up into vimto cordial (neat) and syringe it into his cheeks.

You can also get an apparently delicious liquid pred now. It comes in little plastic vials and it is expensive and easier to get in some areas than others but theoretically you could ask GP to prescribe and pharmacy to order...

Thank you all so much for replies! Will try all suggestions as and when. Thanks also for the sympathy. Greatly appreciated this evening.

dissolve in the tiniest amount of hot kettle water then add neat blackcurrant cordial. don't let the overall volume go above 2/3 mls (so patience at stage 1 needed). then quickly swaddle child in a blanket or large towel and lay on the floor with a pillow under their head and squirt into the side of their mouth gently but without dilly dallying. if they are on the floor like this you won't worry about holding a protesting tot and no risk of them falling.
this is what worked for us anyway

Thank you. Am so grateful for advice.

I agree with @nosatellitesignal - warm water and neat cordial, very small amounts (under 5mls is impressive!)

The 'delicious' liquid pred does exist - I believe it's cream soda flavour but I think it's 1mg/ml so it ends up as quite a lot to take and not all children like it - still has the after taste.

If and when you do manage to get it down him, give it in the morning if possible (and if not contrary to medical advice). It can really cause insomnia, IME, and that’s probably best avoided with a toddler!

Good luck, and really hope he’s on the mend soon x

Honey was always my DM's go to.

the trick is fairly hot kettle water and patience for them to dissolve. i would crush them in the pot with the syringe as they fizzed to help them along.