dcmom Posted January 2, 2012 Report Share Posted January 2, 2012 Dean, be prepared to give it some time. Like I said, for us, the initial episode took 30 days of antibiotics. Try to look at the weekly trend, rather than analyzing daily. For us it was slow calming down and improvement week over week, until back to normal around 4 or 5 weeks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nicklemama Posted January 2, 2012 Report Share Posted January 2, 2012 Dean- Welcome and sorry you have to be here. You are so ahead of the game than most of us found ourselves. You seemed to have caught this early. It took more than a yr for my DS to get a proper diagnosis and treatment. The first thing I will say is its probably too soon to expect major changes in your daughter from the abx. It takes time. First, she has to clear the infection. You are lucky to have found a pediatrician so willing to work w/ you. I recommend your pediatrician call and have a consult w/ Dr Trifitti. As for the dosage, my DS weighed about 53lbs when first prescribed regular augmentin. He took 500mg twice a day. They are horse pills. You never know how the learning to swallow a pill will go. My DS had just turned 7 when he started the augmentin. I got water and M&M's, planning to teach him how to swallow. He looked at the pill and told me he didn't need practice. He picked it up and swallowed it w/ a little water. My wish is that it will go that easy for you. It may not. Some kids just have the knack for swallowing things and some don't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayzoo Posted January 2, 2012 Report Share Posted January 2, 2012 (edited) Any pointers on how to help them learn to swallow the pill? If she has difficulties, try cutting the pill cleanly in half with a sharp knife or pill cutter so it is not crushed. Then put each half on a spoonful of yogurt (or another soft food such as applesauce) and see if she can swallow it whole this way. She needs to drink a good amount of water after swallowing the pill this way (minimum 1/2 glass of water) as well to insure it does not become lodged in the esophagus. "Do not crush or chew the Augmentin XR (extended-release) tablet. Swallow the pill whole, or break the pill in half and take both halves one at a time." http://www.drugs.com/augmentin.html Yogurt can also help lessen the likely of diarrhea and yeast infections. Not all antibiotics can be taken with milk products, so always check first. But, this particular one has only minimal absorption reduction with milk products, not enough to cause any real concern. "The present work has shown that aluminum hydroxide, milk and cimetidine do have some influence on the bioavailability of a single dose of oral Augmentin, but the small differences observed are unlikely to be of therapeutic importance." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3838971 Edited January 2, 2012 by Mayzoo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LNN Posted January 2, 2012 Report Share Posted January 2, 2012 My kids learned to swallow pills by practicing on tic tacs. If they had to spit it out, no biggie. if they swallowed, they got to eat one the regular way as a reward. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MomWithOCDSon Posted January 2, 2012 Report Share Posted January 2, 2012 Just two more pieces of advice regarding the XR in particular, and antibiotics in general. Yogurt and kefir contain acidolpholus, which is a good enough probiotic when one isn't taking antibiotics; however, these organisms are rather readily killed off by most antibiotics, so you're better off branching off into some antibiotic-resistent probiotic strains and dosing them a couple of hours away from the antibiotic, just to ensure efficacy. While you can get a multitude of mixed strains at health food and vitamin stores, a couple of good ones are in your local pharmacy and grocery store: FloraStor (sach. boulardis) and Culturelle (lactobillus). And also, just in the event you currently use or have considered adding digestive enzymes to your child's regimen, don't if you're going with XR. Part of what makes time-released meds time-released is cellulose, and most enzyme supplements include cellulase, which breaks up cellulose. So by pairing digestive enzymes with a time-release med, you basically negate the time-release component. All the best! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DebC Posted January 2, 2012 Report Share Posted January 2, 2012 Any pointers on how to help them learn to swallow the pill? Dean -- This is Debbie -- We spoke this morning. We used apple sauce to aid our daughter with swallowing her pills. We put the pill in a spoonful of the apple sauce and down it would go. As recommended above by others, a probiotic is also a good thing to use when on a long term antibiotic to promote gut health. Another PANDAS mom recommended that we try Theralac and we have been very happy with it. http://www.theralac.com/Default.aspx We order it from the site and they ship it to us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tpotter Posted January 2, 2012 Report Share Posted January 2, 2012 Dean...I just PM'd you about the IVIG trial. I hope you'll consider checking into it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dean1065 Posted January 2, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 2, 2012 Dean...I just PM'd you about the IVIG trial. I hope you'll consider checking into it. Thank you, I emailed them Friday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dean1065 Posted January 2, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 2, 2012 Thank you to everyone that replied. All the advice has been a tremendous help! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bulldog24 Posted January 4, 2012 Report Share Posted January 4, 2012 Try tic tacs first. Then you can get pill glide, it coats the pills and easier to go down.. Have you considered the nih study? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WorriedDADNMOM Posted January 5, 2012 Report Share Posted January 5, 2012 Dean, I concurr on zithromax. It is exactly one year ago we started battling this. We are on zithromax and several vitamins and supplements. With this it can be tough getting them to take a larger pill. We use spoonfuls of apple sauce, yogurt or have been teaching them about putting pill in and big gulp or guzzle what ever liquid. Has been harder than apple sauce in the short term but are getting easier as we teach them to get over fear of choking. I recommend getting to pandas/pans literate doc. Abx are good but in our case getting healthy has included many vitamins and minerals. Enhansa has been one. Pm me if you need anything else. This early part is very hard be encouraged and don't give up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WorriedDADNMOM Posted January 5, 2012 Report Share Posted January 5, 2012 Dean, I concurr on zithromax. It is exactly one year ago we started battling this. We are on zithromax and several vitamins and supplements. With this it can be tough getting them to take a larger pill. We use spoonfuls of apple sauce, yogurt or have been teaching them about putting pill in and big gulp or guzzle what ever liquid. Has been harder than apple sauce in the short term but are getting easier as we teach them to get over fear of choking. I recommend getting to pandas/pans literate doc. Abx are good but in our case getting healthy has included many vitamins and minerals. Enhansa has been one. Pm me if you need anything else. This early part is very hard be encouraged and don't give up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bulldog24 Posted January 5, 2012 Report Share Posted January 5, 2012 Dean, also call them. Dont let this chance go by. My son and i are here right now for 2nd visit.. I feel very grateful to be here. Please call and keep calling. Only a few spots left. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NancyD Posted January 5, 2012 Report Share Posted January 5, 2012 Although very simple, this is how I taught my DD how to swallow her pills 11 years ago: put the pill in your mouth, take a big drink of water, and then I said "look up at the sky!" Somehow it worked and from that moment on she could swallow her pills. Any pointers on how to help them learn to swallow the pill? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
airial95 Posted January 5, 2012 Report Share Posted January 5, 2012 Might I offer another suggestion? I know I sound like a broken record to some of the regular folks on here, but if you haven't already, start some sort of daily log or journal with your childs symptoms. We used a daily scoring method that another parent on the forum (Buster) had recommended. I noticed, that in our case anyway, we didn't seem to be as "in tune" with the improvements as we were with the initial deterioration. Each symptom is heartbreaking, so every time we saw a tic, or our son touching or lining things up it was heartbreaking to us. But until we started to document it and quantify it, we didn't realize that he was improving on the antibiotics. It took us about a week to see any noticable difference, but even then, it was just the physical aggression that went away - the tantrums, rages, etc. were all still there. Until we started logging, we didn't realize that the tantrums were getting shorter each and every time. Yes - they were still happening, but a 3 hour tantrum compared to a 30 minute tantrum is an improvement. Without our log - we were just seeing it as still a tantrum. It might help you and your doctor objectively evaluate when to change treatment options and when to stay the course. Just a suggestion! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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