Kid Hack: How to Get a Kid to Swallow a Large Pill

For those of you that haven’t been following along, we just got over a nasty bout of Helicobacter pylori. The treatment for H. pylori is the so-called “triple therapy” of 30 mg Lansoprazole (Prevacid), 500 mg Clarithromycin (Biaxin Filmtab), and 2 x 500 mg Amoxicillin. This regimen is taken twice a daily for a total of 60 mg Prevacid, 1000 mg Biaxin Filmtab, and 2000 mg Amoxicillin per day.

The problem

Unfortunately, swallowing all of those pills is a pretty tall order for a kid. By far the worst was the amoxicillin, which is a huge capsule that tastes (and smells) like rotten eggs. And you get two per dose, for a total of four per day. Ugh. Not a fun experience for our ten year old. Our doctor suggested that we open the caplets and mix them with either apple sauce or ice cream, but that just resulted in a big nasty bowl of apple sauce or ice cream.

The solution

Fortunately, we hit upon a winning combination: the pills, a big soup spoon, and a bottle of Hershey’s chocolate syrup… Simply place the pill on the spoon, cover it with a generous amount of chocolate syrup, and go. The chocolate syrup masks the taste and make the pill slippery and easy to swallow. Once we stumbled onto this combination, it was smooth sailing.

So… If you have to give your kids a big nasty pill, remember that a spoonful of Hershey’s syrup helps the medicine go down.