Hello All. My 2.5 year old son was DX in April with ALL pre-B. Today we just started LTM, so we need to give him a pill or two every night. Right now we are mashing up the tablets and putting them in sorbet (non citrus and non dairy) or ice cream, but life would be much easier if he could just swallow the tablet with water. Does anyone have any recommendations for how to teach my son to swallow a nasty tasting pill whole? Thanks!
Andrew has always gagged on any and all liquid medicine, so we had to get him used to pills at an early age, long before cancer. We taught him by first teaching him to gargle, just with water. He thought it was hilarious! Once he got used to holding the water in the back of his throat (without gargling), we could just plop the pill in and he would swallow it along with the water. He's almost 11 now, and still takes pills this way -- liquid in the mouth first, then add the pills. He may have been a little older than 2.5 though, I can't remember for sure.
Hope you find a good solution so you can stop the mashing. Congratulations on starting maintenance -- we're right behind you!
Kristen
Ah- the tipping point for my child. No way no how will he make any attempt to swallow a pill. Nope. Not doing it. That being said- lots of folks have taught less stubborn little ones to swallow pills. I had a program sent to me, I have since deleted it, but I remember the jist. You start w/ sprinkles. You know- like cupcake sprinkles. This gives a sense of success. Once the child has done 10 (sticker for each try), move to something a bit bigger like jimmies or bigger sprinkles. Advance to mini M&Ms then to the regular size. We had a party and one of the games was to see how many mini M&Ms you could swallow. All the kids except my son learned to swallow pills.
My other son had to learn to swallow a pill and he does it by chewing up some food, then tossing in the pill and swallowing all at once. For him it was super easy.
I have also heard of freezing the pills and covering them in magic shell.
Meanwhile, we crush and mix with Rootbeer Sno Cone syup. Sigh.
Oh to swallow pills... This is something we still struggle with and Jakob is 12. We started with tic-tacs, and did the gargle water pill in after. For him it was his only control so he just refused. I think practise is the key and making it a game at 2.5 you can probably still fool them into "playing" while they practise.
Good Luck
My daughter, now 4 and a half, has always had her dex pills crushed and mixed with choc ice cream, but last couple of months I just hand her them (we also use oral disintegrating zofran and pepcid so she is used to popping pills in her mouth) and say these are the yucky ones, chomp fast. She does and gets a piece of candy after. This works so much better, is easier and I feel confident she is getting the full dose.Hope this helps. Trish
Thank you so much for all of your suggestions! We'll start trying the water gargling and small candy swallowing first. Hopefully, it will work.
I think I'll enlist his older brother to help 'show' him and make a game out of it.
Emma was diagnosed at age 3 and learned to swallow pills after about six months. Basically, we had codiene (small white pill) and morphine (blue oral suspension) as pain relief options. Her dad would set them both in front of her and let her choose which she wanted. She really hated the liquids so she got better and better at popping pills. Which is nice because like you, we had to crush several meds to give them to her and it was a pain.
Now she is four and pops pills like a rock star. We are so proud. :~P LOL Anytime we have the option of a med in pill form, we give her that. She still takes stuff like Benadryl, Atovaquone (Septra alternative), etc. in liquid because that's all that is available.
PS - I crushed the pills in a pill crusher, poured .5 tsp of juice into the container and then sucked it all up into a syringe. I never thought to put it in ice cream!
Kim, fyi benadryl makes a 12 mg fastmelt pill that Kelly loves like candy
hi, my 3 year-old took his pills in gelatin capsules ( they dont have taste).He refused anything liquid so we put his liquid meds in gel caps as well. Now, at four, he just swallows pills. The funny thing is he learned to swallow pills at 2 or 2,5 as he watched me taking vit.C - he desperately wanted to try it too and I was afraid he could choke. Finally I let him take it and he had no problems at all (that was before ALL).
For my son (3.5 when we first tried) we wrap his pills in a little bit of fruit roll-up. This way he doesn't taste the pill and it's slippery (my son doesn't even use water to swallow it.) This is actually how I give him his nightly pill at 11pm and I don't even have to wake him up I just slip it in his mouth and he swallows it.
We never have been able to get our daughter to swallow pills - diagnosed at 3, now she's 5 and still not taking the pills. We buy pure apple juice (no added Vit C) and put into a syringe, we then put the tablets in the syringe and let them dissolve. This is how we've been giving the weekly methotrexate all along. We were able to get liquid 6MP and a local pharmacy adds a bubble gum flavor. By the way, I hope that you are wearing a mask and taking precautions if you are crushing chemo pills in the home. It is dangerous, esp if you are/were to get pregnant (I am now and the docs keep harping on that). Good luck!
Hello All, I just wanted to give a quick update. My son is now chewing the pills (with ice cream or sorbet). So although it's not as good as swallowing (what does chemo pills do to your teeth and gums?), it is a lot better than trying to deal with pill crushing (where we can't be sure he get's the entire dose.)
Thank you so much for your advice! I wouldn't have even thought he would chew it until others shared their story. We are still working on the swallowing; eventually I think he'll get it.