Giving both paracetamol & ibruprofen to feverish children

[MatNanPlus]

story here

well I'm sorry but we were always advised to intersperse the two and that's what we've always done which was particularly valuable as second child has febrile episodes.

I know that NHS advice changed in the last 6 years or so to say you can't do it .. but really I think that was a lowest common denominator, nanny-state change .. a 'you can't possibly do it safely' comment on parents.

It's barely news .. we've been doing it for years

My GP has been telling me to do this for two years now. I can't understand why people wouldn't do this. They work in totally different ways.

But it's worth bearing in mind that brufen builds up in the liver so should not be used three days running, so you sort of need to have the option to switch and change.

37.8 degrees is not a fever FGS .. it should not in most cases need medicating at all

My GP has always told me to combine, I didn't realise there was any question about it. He has always said it's more of a risk not to try and keep the temperature down.

When ds was particularly ill at 3months it's what we had to do on advice of doctors and have done so a couple of times since for the dcs when fever and pain rules.

NHS Direct told me to do a paracetamol/ibuprofen combo leaving 3 hours inbetween the doses of each. I did this overnight and kept DD with me the whole time. It worked. Had the fever not subsided then I would have taken her to see a doctor. Oh and we also did the flannels, stripped to nappy stuff too.

We've always alternated between them.

I've always done this on the advice of the GP. I would say that Ibuprofen is more effective than paracetamol.

i wasn't saying you should or shouldn't just posting a news story...sorry i'm sure.

paracetamol and ibuprofen are in different drug groups so can be taken with each other...this is what my pharmacist friend told me. I do it for myself but have never needed to with DC's, paracetamol has always been enough.

I too have done this on a background of my own experience (advised to do it for my own pain management) and because I was advised to do it by A&E after taking PFB there with a high temp. However, when he was ill recently I phoned NHSDirect for advice and they were really stroppy with me when I said I'd given both calfen and calpol. They said it wasn't recommended and that I shouldn't mix drugs....made me feel really worried and guilty that I'd done something wrong at a time when I was looking for reassurance.

When my DS was ill last winter, he was seen at one hospital A&E and given both together to bring down his temp (which was over 40). Later that day, he was admitted to a different hospital where they interspersed them so even the NHS don't play by the same rules. What that meant was that he had loads more temp spikes than I think he would have had if he'd been given the two together

If he has a really high temp now (and by high I mean over 39.5) then I will give him both.

DS was given a pretty little cocktail of pink strawberry paracetomal with orange ibuprofen floated on top by two different A&E departments in our area. Calsworld, I'm sure NHS Direct have advised me its okay to combine or at least alternate - but maybe it was the out of hours doctor service that did. I wish they'd be a bit more consistent.

The expert on radio 4 this morning said that a fever in an otherwise feeling ok child didn't need treating, and was part of the body's way of fighting infection. Medicine was only needed if the child was feeing very unwell.

Seeker, I think it depends how high the fever is. If it's 41 deg C and the child is otherwise well it still needs to come down. If it's 38.5 agree there is no urgency.

I don't think fevers need treating unless very high and there is a danger of a convulsion. It's the body raising the temperature to kill the infection, by lowering the fever the child will have less natural defences to combat the illness. These drugs are not as innocuous as we are lead to believe, I would proceed with caution. They should have included the time taken for the child to recover from the illness not just the success in suppressing the body's natural defences.

i never knew this until xmas this year when dd was taken to hospital (by blue light ambulance ) she was 15 at the time and menigitis was the first thought both doc and para-medics had (btw - this came on so quickly its not true!)

in fact, she had severe sinus infection, which, when told, made me feel totally stupid for 'wasting' nhs resources and angry for the fact that i thought my dd was in fact, dying.

had i known previously i would have tried the combined dosage!

btw - i have used both this summer when it happened again, the difference is amazing.

we were also advised by the consultant to alternate when ds2 had meningitis.

I am obviously lucky as my kids rarely have serious temps, in fact I don't own a thermometer. I usually leave a fever tbh, unless it is serious - I think once in 9 years. But I would do mix of both drugs and have when dd has been in serious ppain from a tooth abcess and a broken arm

Message withdrawn

I was told to alternate when ds broke his wrist - with the Ibuprofen at bed time. Can't remember why.

But I really believe that a temperature alone should not have people reaching for either medicine. The body is very effective at fighting minor infections without chemical help - and the fewer chemicals we put in our children's systems the better.

DD has been given doses of both at the same time when admitted to hospital for a high fever when she was about 11 months old. When she was discharged I was advised to alternate doses so that I was giving her somthing every three hours.

She has run a couple of very high fevers since then and I have always followed this advice and have also had a GP tell ne the same thing.

I was also told at our hospital to alternate both to keep a temperature down. and have used that method loads of times especially before ds was diagnosed with epilepsy and was thought to be having febrile convulsions.

Advised to give them alternatively, so rather than wait say 6 hours between doses would give one or other every 3 hours.
Advice was from GP and also team who developed Nurofen.

i thought it was well known to use both