Not taking full dose of antibiotics

[Mrs P]

DD has pharyngitis and is on 5ml of antibiotics, four times a day. She used to be really good at taking medicine but this one she refuses. We are having to hold her down and force her to take it
Sometimes she is only swallowing about half the dose. Does anyone know if it will still be effective? She's had a fever (38 to 39 degrees) since yesterday morning, started drugs yesterday afternoon.
We had a follow up Dr appt today but her temp had dropped and Dr had said if that happened, not to drag her back in i.e. if she seemed to be better. And of course then her temp went back up and it was too late to see Dr. Going to see how she is in the morning

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

She needs to take as much of the dose as possible, although smaller doses should be effective, it isn't the full treatment. I know what it's like - we usually use a 5ml syringe, pin DS down force him to open his mouth and inject it in then not let him move until he swallowed. After two goes of that he then found it a game so took his medication really well - although we still have to pin him down, he asks us to do that for antibiotics. Haven't had them for a while, fingers crossed he won't remember should he need them again.

[mummame]

I know how hard it is, my DD has never been good taking medications. She is now 6 and only ever had ab's once and then we had to hide it in chocolate yoghurt and chocolate ice cream just so she would take it, I can tell you ice cream 4 times a day for 5 days, even she started to get sick of it lol but I told her if she didnt eat the ice cream I would have to force her to take the medicine, she never did work it out. Sometimes you just have to do what works. I don't like pinning children down to get them to take medications, I think it traumatises them and you have less chance of them taking it again next time, plus the only time we did that, my DD proceeded to vomit it straight back up anyway.

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

Depends on the child, Mummame - my DS has never been traumatised by rough-and-tumble, including when needed to take medicine. Or at least, he laughs about it two minutes later, maybe his brain is wired up to get over trauma quickly? He'd need that with me as a mother.

DS also wouldn't eat antibiotics mixed in with other food as he can taste it still, causing more stress to me. (I also don't like sneaking medication to my child - he is usually very good at taking his medications and being upfront and honest works best with him. Plus he will remind me it's medicine time if I don't give him his medicine - if I were hiding medication and he demanded more medication... not going to go there!)

[mummame]

Depends on the child, Mummame - my DS has never been traumatised by rough-and-tumble, including when needed to take medicine. Or at least, he laughs about it two minutes later, maybe his brain is wired up to get over trauma quickly? He'd need that with me as a mother.

DS also wouldn't eat antibiotics mixed in with other food as he can taste it still, causing more stress to me. (I also don't like sneaking medication to my child - he is usually very good at taking his medications and being upfront and honest works best with him. Plus he will remind me it's medicine time if I don't give him his medicine - if I were hiding medication and he demanded more medication... not going to go there!)

oh yeah, totally agree. I have just had bad experiances with my DD and forcing medications...needless to say we were literally cleaning the walls afterwards

[Mrs P]

Thanks ladies. Her fever got worse so we've just been to ER to get her checked. Dr said there was no pus etc so he thinks it's probably viral not bacterial anyway and basically said it was up to us whether we continue to give her the antibiotics or not!!

I'm not sure what to do... She's now so unhappy when she sees the syringe she won't even take nurofen or panadol without a struggle.
I'm leaning towards stopping the drugs (antibiotics) and seeing how she goes, DH wants to continue for the weekend...

[MrsFabuloso]

Maybe try a little cup instead of syringe?

[[M]umma[M]ia]

Yeah try a cup or a spoon. Bribe her with a treat.

[Kmn]

For nurofen and panadol you may find it easier to get the next strength up so you give a much smaller actual volume of dose (still giving the mg of active ingredient appropriate for her weight or age).
This is one battle that isn't negotiable - you need to win, whatever it takes.

[MummyNaomi]

Other option might be to mix it with a little bit of juice to drink perhaps? Juice is a treat for my DS so he'd gulp it down - would something like that work?