Tips on how to get an 8-year-old to take a pill?

[Bookshelf]

I have a somewhat narrow esophagus and therefore had trouble swallowing pills, but my mom taught me a brilliant trick that I still use in my adult years:

A bowl of yoghurt or porridge (needs to be fairly thick, and bland enough that you just swallow it).

Eat half of the yoghurt/porridge/pudding, so your esophagus has relaxed and opened and is ready to recieve the shovelling of food. Then plunk the pill into your food, coat it fully, then scoop it up and swallow the whole thing with a nice big spoonful of food.

With porridge, I hardly even notice the horse-sized pills. It also works wonders for keeping the stomach from getting upset about the pills.

[Sparky]

I have a somewhat narrow esophagus and therefore had trouble swallowing pills, but my mom taught me a brilliant trick that I still use in my adult years:

A bowl of yoghurt or porridge (needs to be fairly thick, and bland enough that you just swallow it).

Eat half of the yoghurt/porridge/pudding, so your esophagus has relaxed and opened and is ready to recieve the shovelling of food. Then plunk the pill into your food, coat it fully, then scoop it up and swallow the whole thing with a nice big spoonful of food.

With porridge, I hardly even notice the horse-sized pills. It also works wonders for keeping the stomach from getting upset about the pills.

Unfortunately, not all pills should be taken with food. But this would be a good technique for those that can be, especially for a beginner.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

It took me years to get the hang of swallowing pills, I was into my teens before I got the knack.
:-)
On the few occasions I needed to take pills, Mum used to put them in a slice of mars bar, so I could just eat them stress-free. This method also worked when giving the dog medicine.
(Not the most efficient way of taking time-release versions, but at least it gets some of the medicine in you.)

My grandmother would put the pill in a spoonful of apple jelly (or grape) and feed it to me that way until I was old enough to take pills on my own. It took me a few years to get the hang of it as well . . .but once in a while one may get stuck crossways, in which case I'll grab a bottle of cold water from the fridge and start chugging down until I can wash it down and not feel like it's still stuck.

[Sapphire Silk]

Eat half of the yoghurt/porridge/pudding, so your esophagus has relaxed and opened and is ready to recieve the shovelling of food. Then plunk the pill into your food, coat it fully, then scoop it up and swallow the whole thing with a nice big spoonful of food.

With porridge, I hardly even notice the horse-sized pills. It also works wonders for keeping the stomach from getting upset about the pills.

Mixing pills with soft foods like applesauce is an oooolllldddd nursing trick, crushed or uncrushed.

But, as Sparky said, not all meds can be taken with food. Some must be taken on an empty stomach.

Also, not all pills can be crushed. Some have enteric coatings meant to protect the stomach (the med is absorbed elsewhere in the GI system), or because the med should be absorbed in the small intestine rather than the stomach. Or the med is time released; crushing it means you get the whole dose at once, and that can be very dangerous, especially with long acting narcotics (you can literally give yourself a lethal overdose this way).

If you have trouble swallowing pills, talk to your pharmacist about whether they can be taken with food, or if they can be crushed. If the answer is no, see if it is available in a liquid formulation (many, though not all meds, are).

[CalyCoRose]

The doctor prescribed a medication that starts with the letter "V". She told me not to put it in milk or water as CR might not drink it all and then we won't know how much she took. So I take a small container of strawberry yogurt it in a bowl, open the capsule and pour the powder over the yogurt and then stir it up. I feed it to her to make sure she eats it all.

I think I'm going to have her practice either this weekend or next. Probably going to have hubs coach her. (I get really nervous).

[rose_metal_nz]

Thank you everyone for the tips! I'm still a little worried, she's on the autism spectrum also, so that might cause a problem with her understanding the concept of swallowing a pill. I'll try the small candies trick. Hopefully she won't decide to chew it instead.

Not to go too far OT, but.. I was diagnosed ADHD as a kid & then rediagnosed again as an adult, despite meds (will not go into detail) not shall we say "working" and then me being diagnosed as a bunch of other stuff, including but not limited to bi-polar. Turns out I'm Aspergers...
Was just talking to my cousin's wife about meds re. their recently-diagnosed autistic kidlet & turns out - surprise, surprise - those on the autistic scale do not react well/kindly (read: often adversely) to medications - specifically, those they're given for stuff they get often misdiagnosed at.

Sorry if this seems really wordy but.. If she's on the autistic spectrum, is everyone ABSOLUTELY sure that your kidlet is ADHD?

[SongsOfDragons]

I once had to take capsules for some...thing. They were green and yellow and filled with tiny multicoloured balls. I was younger than 12 because it was before we moved. Mum showed me how to take them, and for the first and the second dose I was fine - then on the third it got stuck in my throat and I was, well, not in the liking of taking them thereafter. Mum tried to break one open and pour the balls into a glass of orange juice - not entirely sure if that was the best thing, but it worked, whatever I had cleared up and I'm still alive now. :S

When I was 14 I was diagnosed with epilepsy, and I was put on Epilim Chrono. They're covered with this lilac membrane thing as they're slow-release, which is a bugger if the sheet I keep in my bag in case I'm out for dinner etc gets a hole in one of the blisters, because the pill tends to look like it's exploded after exposure to air/moisture. Because I was going to be on this for the forseeable future I took them without complaint, probably to the unending relief of my mother. ^^;; But well, I was older than the fiasco above. They tried to switch me to Lamotrigine for a while, and those tablets tasted GACK. Hated them. Luckily (!!) they made my fits worse so they switched me back...

[CalyCoRose]

The Developmental Pediatrician we saw this past October said she was more ADHD and/or PDD-NOS. The teachers did say her social interactions are right up there as being Autistic.

My BIL#1 has ADHD (he was diagnosed as a kid). My 1st cousin was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult. And I'm really sure I have ADHD, but never diagnosed.

Daughter's academics were being interfered with as she couldn't concentrate on anything, but whatever subject she was perseverating on. (I want to be first, I want to go to the library, I want to be good). She throws horrendous tantrums/meltdowns to a point she can't get anything done. It's horrible.

It's day 4 of me feeding her the powder from inside the capsules in yogurt. And even though it's "only" been 4 days since meds started, I can see a little bit of a difference. I'm just hoping this dose size is enough for her and we don't play "Which dose should we do?"

[LadyAndreca]

I learned to choke down pills when I was about ten. My pharmacy didn't flavor their liquid antibiotics, and whatever I had to take instead of penicillin (my memory says arithromycin) was NASTY NASTY NASTY. Being a carrier of strep throat - I brought it home from school twice a year, ever year - I was taking antibiotics pretty often. So I learned to choke down the damn horse pills because I just couldn't take the taste anymore.

[tellmedarkie]

Couple of tricks

My 12 year old puts her anti-depressant on the tip of her toungue and swills some water, then, tips her head back to swallow her (admittedly small) pill, or pushes it waaaay back on her tongue and then chuggs water (or other fluids). My 11 year old autistic kid refuses to take solid or liquid medication, so we get him "meltaways" when we can (and watch carefully to make sure he doesn't spit them out) or crush up his pills and mix with chocolate syrup.

Check with your doctor if it's ok to crush her pills, because some are timed for release as they dissolve in her tummy, and some can go in one shot.

With my daughter we have a callender to mark off the days that we see her take her pills, otherwise she can "forget". The reward thing shoud work well, especially if you can lump it in with with her chores and make it routine.

[fireheart]

The doc said milk or water yes? Maybe try her favourite juice?

[Flying Grype]

Man, when I was eight and had medication it was never pills, it was either chewable tabs or horrid liquid.

I like the yogurt/custard idea, I may end up taking my own multivitamins that way. :P My antidepressants are tiny and easy enough to swallow.

[Blue Ginger]

I hope your daughter has a good outcome with the medication.

My mum has to crush all my tablets as a kid. I still have to crush anything bigger than the pill and I'm over a quarter of a century.

We used to mix the really yuck tasting ones with chocolate topping that was for ice-cream. The not so bad ones, I used to tip onto the back of the tongue with a teaspoon and chase it with a big glass of water, then juice.

/Thread jack/ My brother was put onto the damn 'R' drug when his teacher insisted he had ADD at 11. Made him literally bounce off the walls. 8 months of hell for all of us. The last day of her class was the last day he took them.

Mum took him to our doc, who said he should never had been put on them. Our doc and a naturopath did a huge amount of testing and discover his body wasn't producing something. They recommended fish oil tablets. A few weeks later, totally different brother. They helped him concentrate and generally calm down. /

If the drugs you are trying don't work, it might be worth investigating.

[Solumina]

I was about her age when I was diagnosed with ADD (later changed to ADHD) and my parents taught me how to take a pill using red hots (I think they picked them because they were about the right size and shape and I wasn't a huge fan of them so I wouldn't associate pills with yummy candy).

One thing that I will warn you about is that sometimes it isn't playing "find the right dose" so much as "find the right meds", there are many different medications that are used to treat ADHD and some people notice differences even among different brands of the same type of medications. For me Ritalin worked, nothing else ever did, even the generic version. It was the second thing that they tried with me and we stuck with it for a few years but once I started middle school I really wanted to be able to go the whole school day without taking a pill and at that time Ritalin did not have an extended release option so we tried pretty much everything else, with no real success, I was ecstatic when Ritalin LA came out a couple of years later.

Good luck to you guys, it can be frustrating but the right meds (and the right doc) can make a world of difference.

[CalyCoRose]

Well, we tried the "place pill on tongue, drink water, swallow everything" approach. It did not pan out. The pill stayed in her mouth, but the water went down. Next I tried the "put pill in yogurt, have her swallow it". Didn't work neither. She must have felt the pill in the yogurt as yogurt went down, but pill didn't. I tried to open the pill, but it wouldn't open, so I had her throw that one away and opened a new one and put the powder into her yogurt.

I might try that pill swallowing cup. Or try tic tacs. Or any one of the myriad suggestions in this thread.