Ibuprofen/Paracetamol

[Collection]

Ds is going away on week's residential school trip.

I have been asked to complete a form authorising them to administer Paracetamol and/or Ibuprofen (or not) should it be necessary.

I have no issue with this and trust them to decide if he needs it or not but generally (touch wood) he is not a sickly child and has only rarely taken paracetamol in his 13 years. I have never felt the need to give him Ibuprofen.

So, would it be precious of me to make the form "please give paracetamol as preference, as he has never taken Ibuprofen so we don't know if there is any likely reaction?"

Better just to say yes or no? If so, which?

If he hasn't ever taken it before it would seem sensible to not tale it on a school trip imo.

I'd add a note as you suggest, they won't mind

take

grrr

Just say paracetamol only, that will be fine. There is a reaction to ibuprofen in a small but significant proportion of asthma sufferers so in a school group, I doubt he would be the only one whose parents request this. And make sure he knows that paracetamol is the thing he has had at home, just in case, in the middle of the night, the staff may ask him for example.

Someone with more pharmaceutical knowledge will doubtless be along shortly, but as far as I understand it Ibuprofen is an anti-inflammatory so has properties other than just painkilling. So there are situations where it would be the preferred choice of treatment.

You wouldn't be precious to give your consent to both but flagging up the fact that he hasn't previously been given Ibuprofen so can't be sure of its effects in terms of reaction.

Yes, Optimist, that's why I didn't want to just say know.

It's a trip where there is plenty of opportunity for injury and in that situation I probably would give Ibuprofen at home but I've never needed to up til now.

know no

Just had a thought ... how about giving him Ibuprofen whilst he's still at home and under your observant eye?

Oh, I could Optimist but I haven't got him to 13yo on a handful of parecatmol by being the kind of mum who medicates unnecessarily

As a teacher who takes pupils abroad regularly I would prefer it if you wrote 'Paracetamol only, has never taken ibuprofen'. These are the facts. If he then needed something beyond paracetamol I would consider phoning you before administering it.

In all my years of trips, I've only ever had to give paracetamol three times, treat a daft red-haired told-to-cream-up-endlessly teen for sunstroke, buy a tubigrip in Italy and considered taking one to hospital for suspected broken toe (rang mum, we didn't take the child in the end).

It's fairly unlikely your note would be needed, but write it anyway.

Oh god, I have a daft red-head....but yes, I thought perhaps it would be better to make the decision than ask them to make the call if necessary.

The form actually asks you to say if they can't have Ibuprofen because they're asthmatic though and DS isn't, which is why I got all confused.

Ibuprofen isn't to be taken by people with certain bowel conditions either so at least the school are aware that there's issues with it. You can never give too much info on a school trip med form in my opinion.