Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Allergy medicine for the babes

I hate medicine ... I hate medicine ... Oh, maybe it's not so bad!!

My son has terrible allergies, to what I'm not sure but he'll be tested around his second birthday. Whatever it is, he's allergic to the same things his big sister is allergic to, only worse.

His ped said give him Benadryl. He loves the chewable tablets and thinks they're candy but that's about all it is for him, just candy. It does no good. It does his big sister no good either.

So I told them the Benadryl doesn't work and they prescribed Claritin, or loratadine, the generic medicine. It's available OTC but we thought that since we have ARKids 1st (state funded Medicaid) it would be cheaper with a prescription. They gave him a 5mg syrup. (That's just great, he spits liquid meds right back in my face and dribbles them down his chin.)

Finally I got the prescription filled, and literally the day before he figured out how to use a sippy cup (no joke) so I decided to put 3-4 oz. of juice in the cup and his teaspoon of medicine in with it and give it to him. I was skeptical that he would even drink it and more skeptical that it would even work.

To my amazement, he drank it, and further to my amazement, IT WORKED!

His eyes are no longer red and itchy, his nose isn't running as much, and his cheeks and chin aren't red anymore. AND he's sleeping a bit better at night!

*happy dance*

I want to try this medicine with his sister too, since it has worked so well for my son. She has not ever been diagnosed with specific allergies, but it looks like she needs to be tested and treated as well.

I'd rather treat allergies without medicine but these kids really have us stumped. My daughter had eczema when she was a young child and she did not respond to the hydrocortizone that was prescribed for her. We just slogged through her first few years trying one thing after another until she finally grew out of it. My son did respond to the hydrocortizone at first but after a while it wasn't really doing anything, so now he is using something stronger for his eczema.

Now we have allergies to deal with in two kids, but I'm open to medicine if it makes their lives (and mine) easier.

3 comments:

Ruby said...

Michelle, my Shelby has horrible allergies, too. I think she was born allergic to something, but it was months before the doctors would believe me! She took Claritin for a while, and now is on Zyrtec. She takes 1/4 a day as needed. Right now they are really bad because we just moved and stirred up a lot of dust. With my own allergies, I find that if I take 1000 mg of vitamin C a day, I don't get bothered by them. I don't know if this type of therapy is appropriate for a baby (haven't looked into it), but it might be for an older child, say AA's age. You might just try giving her 250 mg a day for a few days and then go up to 500 mg. The great thing about vitamin C is that you can't OD on it. You just get rid of it.

Laura said...

Glad you've found something that works for the baby!! Maybe A's will get better too. So glad to see you back blogging. I missed you!

Ruby said...
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