Omepreazole for 3month old - how to give

[kisaki333]

Hi ladies,

Once again I need your help! I am just back from the hospital where a consultant prescribed omeprazole to my 3 month old for her acid reflux. Instructions say to disolve tablet in water and then use a syringe to give her the liquid (3.5ml twice a day).
Question I have is when I try to disolve it in water, it doesn't fully disolve, there's some granules left over at the bottom. Am I supposed to give her part of that too or just leave them?

Sorry, stupid question I know but I didn't think the ask the doctor/pharmacist as I stupidly thought it's fully soluble!

Thank you!

My DD is on Omeprazole.
We have to give 10mg (a whole tablet).
I dissolve this on a medicine spoon with 2.5mls of water. I then suck up the water and granules and administer directly into her mouth.
Any granules left behind i will add more water to and suck up with the syringe and administer again.
The granules is the medication. It isnt soluble like some paracetamol, aspirin etc.
A calpol syringe works well.

Draw it all up, shake the syringe then discard the bit you don't need.

So firstly, the tablets don’t really dissolve - they are made up of lots of tiny granules, the water just breaks them apart from one another. It’s the granules that contain the drug, not the water. For this reason you can’t do what your doctor has suggested - you need to either use a whole tablet (this is the usual starting dose) or break the tablet in half and use that (usually suggested for very small babies). Put the tablet (or half) in a calpol syringe and draw up a couple of mls of water (warm works quicker). Once all broken up them squirt into their mouth. If any granules left then draw up a bit more water and repeat. Other option is to put on a teaspoon and add a few drops of water, wait until it breaks up and mix into a paste, then use your finger to smear inside baby’s cheek. Once they are a bit older you can mix with apple purée and it becomes much easier!

You could ask for liquid omeprazole when the script goes to your GP for next month. It costs the NHS more however on a younger child is easier to administer. You can put the dose in a teat of a bottle and give that way.

In the dissolvable tablet I found slightly warmer water on a medicine spoon easier than the syringe method

Thank you all that answered, at least I know I am not insane! I will try to make do with what I have and see if I can get the liquid prescription for next time.
The big news though is I think it's working already after only 1 dose! Fingers crossed it's gonna continue :)

Get a medicine syringe, put the tablet inside. Then suck up the required amount of cooled boiled water (still a tiny bit warm to help the tablet break apart), shake it very gently. Then syringe directly into baby’s mouth. You could call the paediatrician’s pa if you need any more help with dosage etc and how to do this. Good luck

Problem is the table is 10ml and I need to give her 3.5 at once. No way I can break that table accurately enough to hit the right dose!

Just a side note about the liquid version, youll be lucky to get it prescribed.
It comes in 100ml or 200ml bottles and once opened only lasts 28days.
It also costs over £200!!!!!!

We asked for it and the paediatrician laughed and gave us the tablets as they cost the NHS about 28p.