Jenna
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Saturday, August 20, 2011
Yep, you read that right! Tuesday afternoon at rotation we did syringe shooters during a quiet time. Now, don't go turning in Jay or I to Dr. Mason or the Michigan Board of Pharmacy yet, hear me out!!
What we did was a taste test with common liquid pediatric medications. It's important to know what these medications taste like so that you can flavor them, if possible, or give parents advice on how to mask the taste for their kids. Smell is also an important factor, which is sometimes overlooked. Who wants to drink something that smells disgusting?!
Here are some quick notes on the samples:
Keflex
Tastes okay, not great, but smells pretty bad. This is an antibiotic where flavoring would be helpful go help mask the smell.
Lactulose
Well, of course this tastes (and smells) good since it's pure sugar!! It smells like cake batter and tastes like a thick frosting.
Bactrim (cherry & grape)
Horrible after taste! A great suggestion is to coat the tongue before and after giving the dose. Chocolate syrup is a favorite and helps block some of the after taste.
Azithromycin
Bad after taste!
Zantac
Contains alcohol and is just plain nasty!
Prenisolone sodium
Tastes okay, no real after taste. [Prednisone is nasty from what I've heard/read - you always want to give PrednisoLONE]
Ferrous Sulfate
Have you ever wondered what sucking on a penny would taste like? Yea, me neither.. But, you're in luck! Tasting liquid iron will give you a pretty good idea of what I imagine a penny tastes like! And the taste just doesn't seem to go away .. nasty!
Don't worry .. if you don't end up on an IPPE or APPE with a super cool pharmacist like I did, the pediatrics elective will now have a taste-testing component. Every pharmacist should have an idea of what liquid medications taste like.
1 comment:
My daughter has never been able to take liquid medicines, even when she was very young. (She is now 21.) It was partially the taste which was a problem, but she throws up most medicines almost every time. I always tried hard to find pill forms of even drugs like cough medicine since once she threw up, I never knew if she had gotten any of the drug into her or not.
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