Monday, November 3, 2014

How to Disguise Bactrim

Bactrim Suspension is nasty.  Artificially cherry flavored with a strong, long lasting aftertaste of medicine.  Unfortunately, sometimes it is the only option.  There are no chewables, and the tablets are LARGE.  So if your kid can't swallow the tablets, what are you to do?

Dose 1:  Straight.  A disaster.  Total meltdown.  Finally took it after threatening to take away the video games.

Dose 2: Mixed with some Nestle Quik.  Smelled chocolatey, did not affect the flavor a whit.

Dose 3: Crushed up 2 snack sized KitKats and mixed the Bactrim in.  Child actually smiled while eating it.

Dose 4: Mixed with 1 T. of strawberry mango jam.  Got it in, but barely.  Required spoon-feeding.

Dose 5:  Back to the KitKats.

Dose 6:  Made a smoothie with yogurt, honey, orange juice and banana.  Not bad.  Took too long to drink and we were about to miss the bus for school, left half behind so took half a dose straight (with a lot of fussing).  The second half of the next dose was mixed back into the smoothie, that will be Dose 7. 8.

Dose 7: Mixed with melty pumpkin ice cream.  Had to resort to the no video games threat again.

Dose 8: Back to the smoothie.  Had to add more honey and a little cinnamon.  Drank it really, really slowly.  Finished it, but barely made the bus.  Lots of fussing.

Dose 9:  KitKats.  It's Halloween, so we have lots.  No fussing at all.

Dose 10:  KitKats again.  Choosing the path of least resistance.

Dose 11: Mixed with honey; 1 teaspoon of honey to 2 teaspoons of medicine.  Not horrible, better when we also added some warmed milk.

Dose 12:  Baked into the last pancake in the batch.  Made the pancake pink.  As long as it was slathered with maple syrup, it was OK.  "The best so far," child said.  I cannot find any information about whether or not the antibiotic loses potency when heated.  I might ask a pharmacist.

Dose 13:  Mixed with a mashed up Reeses cup and Milky Way mini.  There wasn't anything to absorb the liquid of the medicine (no wafers!) so ultimately got a piece of cheese and dipped into what was left.  Weird.

Dose 14:  Last one!  Warmed milk, added the Bactrim and a generous spoonful of honey.  Somehow, this small amount (about 4 ounces) took half an hour to drink.  Warm milk and honey without the Bactrim goes down in approximately 45 seconds.  Even Dose 11 went down faster.

I did ask a pharmacist the baking question, she was going to look it up and call me back and I never heard anything more.  I guess there isn't any data out there about efficacy.

Ultimately, I think the KitKats were the easiest and most successful of the attempts to get this into my child.  Without even knowing it, we found something that absorbed a lot of the liquid and overpowered the taste enough to make it tolerable.  However, I do not advocate having 4 snack sized KitKats every day one is on a medication.  Hopefully this is the last time we will have to do this, and that my child will be more motivated to swallow larger pills.

7 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Let me tell you the best thing to mask the taste of Augmentin, and Bactrim are Peppermint Andes Candy. They bite then take a little medicine till its gone.

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  4. I know this post is 6 years old, but it was the 2nd Google result and the only one that provided any hope for getting Bactrim into my 3 year old without her vomiting a minute later.

    So, maybe this will help someone. She can't do kitkats because of the wheat and dairy, but I did find chocolate donut holes that are ok. Warmed 2, mashed them, poured the 5ml dose over and mashed it all in. She's now looking forward to doing this twice a day for 2 weeks.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Let me tell you the best thing to mask the taste of Augmentin, and Bactrim are Peppermint Andes Candy. They bite then take a little medicine till its gone.

    ReplyDelete

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