So I am still terrible at posting more often. There is plenty of stuff that I want to post about but the time to do it is hard to find. For example I have 4 tests next week alone.So what I am going to talk about today is the use of cough medicine in kids. When is it okay to give your kids cough medicine? at 3 months? 6 months? 1 Year? 2 Years? When your pediatrician gives you a specific dose for you child?
Surprisingly none of the above are correct. The FDA has come out with new guidelines that say you should never give a child under the age of 4 any over the counter (OTC) cough medication. Your pediatrician may give you a dose for your child but the evidence still shows that the medication is still not going to be helpful or possibly even safe.
Current research has show that OTC medications for cough don't work for kids under 4, not only that but the chances that they will have a bad reaction are much higher. We have many moms come into the pharmacy and want to give their kids cough medicine, some have asked for recommendations for their very young kids. I personally have had a mother ask me how much NyQuil she could give her 4 month old! What is worse is when a mother asks for a dose for her baby, we explain to her that her child can't safely take the medication and then she wants us to sell it to her anyway.
It is a moderately recent change in guidelines, a couple of years ago it was okay to give OTC cough medication to anyone 2 and over. So it can be hard to remember that you can't give your 3 year old cough medication anymore. Pediatricians know about this change but there is one big difference between Doctors and Pharmacists. Pharmacists' hands are tied by the FDA, Doctors aren't. So when the FDA says that OTC cough medications are unsafe for children under 4 pharmacists are no longer allowed to give dosing to for kids under 4. Whereas Doctors don't have to follow FDA guidelines, that is why they are allowed to prescribe experimental medications and why they can prescribe medications for a disease other that what they have been proven to treat. So your pediatrician may give you a dose for your child but it is most likely because it is easier to give you dosing on a medication that he knows isn't going to work than it is to explain to you that it isn't going to work.
If you want to know what you can do to help your kids when they have a cough here are some suggestions. A humidifier , lots of fluids, rest and less activity, and letting it run its course naturally. If it last more than a few days, if the child has a fever, or even if your just worried take your kid to the doctor and see if he/she wants to prescribe an antibiotic.
Another thing, if you do have to give your kids medications then designate a medicine giver. Most problems that come from cold medications happen because Mom give the kid some medicine and goes to do her hair and then Dad comes down stairs and give kid another dose not knowing that Mom already gave kid some medication.
Really what it boils down to is finding a Doctor and a Pharmacist that you trust and then taking their advice when they give it.
This is me again. (3/5) A few days after I posted the original blog. As I was reading through it again I realized that my main goal of this blog wasn't apparent in my original posting. My whole goal of this blog in general other than occasionally catalogging what is going on in my life is to make sure people understand how important it is that you find a doctor and pharmacist that you can trust, and are competent. Simple things such as OTCs can be fatal in certain people, for example cough syrup in kids, Benadryl in the elderly, Aspirin in childern, Ibuprofen in unborn children, and the list goes on. What is scary is that there are many health care professionals that are unaware of these things. Just yesterday a professor in my Therapeutics class warned us all that we should think about Malpractice Insurance for when we graduate because the day that a pharmacist can be sued for an OTC recommendation isn't far away. The reason it isn't far away is becuase people put too much trust into health care professionals that don't always deserve that trust, I bet most people have had a bad expercience with a doctor, pharmacist, nurse, dentist, or some other health care professional so my goal is to stress the importance of finding the doctor that you know has your best interest in mind and is doing all he/she can to stay current on what is best for you.
One last thing. I do intend to give my future kids cough syrup, but only after I have taken them to the pediatrician, and only after I have found that the pediatrician is worthy of my trust.
