Hello,My child has been taking Quillivant XR for the past 5 weeks. Initially she was ok with the flavor, but then refused it. I made a simple syrup using regular sugar, the flavored with vanilla. It works but was short lived. I found a natural cherry syrup and was using that with the Quillivant. Worked like a charm. But today she refused it all together. She hasn't been off and I'm concerned about withdrawn symptoms in school today.
Also, ordered different flavors for novelty. Hope that works. What do parents do if their young child refuses medication?
Thank you,
Frustrated parent
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Meddyteddy
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My son (almost 10) has struggled with taking medicine his whole life, so it’s been especially hard once we started trying daily adhd meds. One thing that has worked at different times is a reward system (for him that was baseball cards and now some additional allowance - we’ve gotten pretty desperate). Also, we’ve crushed pills and served them on a spoon with chocolate syrup since he doesn’t like applesauce or pudding. That worked for a while, but when we had to increase the dosage it got to be too much. We’ve also let him watch short videos but only as he’s actually taking the medicine. That’s been pretty good motivation and a distraction.
We tried Adzenys for a while because it’s dissolvable, but he doesn’t like the orange taste. We’re trying Vyvanse soon because it can be added to water or milk and we’re hoping he’ll be able to drink it without too much trouble. So there are some creative options out there, but I feel your pain. Especially frustrating because some of the behaviors that lead to medication avoidance would be helped by the medication! Stay strong and as patient as possible. My husband and I can get pretty frustrated, but as you would guess that has never helped the situation. Better to skip a day than have a big fight that will just lead to more avoidance in the future.
we started medication at 7 y.o with a liquid medication because my son had never swallowed a pill & being generally sensitive about what will go in his mouth, we started with liquid.
He was initially very excited about the chocolate milk, but his willingness to take it didn’t last long (regardless of the liquid), because the taste is way too aversive for him.
So we tried a capsule in chocolate mousse and haven’t looked back. We’ve swapped to lemon yoghurt & custard (not as easy as mousse) when his interest in mousse waned.
But my suggestion - if you have tried a tablet/capsule in mousse - it’s definitely worth a try.
When my grandson was younger we would use pudding, apple sauce, flavored yogurt. I think that's common with kids. Something will work for a while and then suddenly it doesn't.
I just wanted to provide an update that we tried Vyvanse and it worked great. Better than any medicine he’s ever taken. Inside the capsule is powder, rather than beads, so it almost completely dissolved in chocolate milk. He drank it down like it was a treat.
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