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My two year-old has just downed almost an entire bottle of strawberry-flavoured paracetemol. The old childproof cap turned out to be not-so-childproof.
It's off to hospital, now, and probably not back for hours. And hours.
Ah, the adventure of raising children! 😕
my 3yr old cousin had half a bottle of white wine from the "chid proof fridge" last weekend... 😯
best of luck - fwiw, they'll take that pretty damn seriously and he'll be assessed sharpish
I'd take the bottle along too, so they can see what the biggest potential dose has been
(you're aware it's a pretty urgent thing, I assume ?)
I hope he's ok...need to get it sorted sharpish and they'll fast track him. Bring the bottle as has been said.
I hope he hasn't had to wait to long for you to create a new thread before taking him to hospital!
Some people might have phoned an ambulance!
Yeah, thanks for that, scaredypants. My wife phoned the NHS help line immediately.
Updates later.
Fingers crossed for the little monster...
bet he pukes in the car 😀
Good luck - that's serious!
kids? bastards the lot of them!
Well not literally as that would mean...Ive not thought this through have I?
One good thing about strawberry paracetamol - kids love it. The bad thing is that they love it. Hope it all goes well for you!
Stoner - father who seems to have spent more time in hospital with his two boys than he has teaching them how to do stuff without maiming themselves 🙄
the kid'll be fine
from the "just" in the OP we get to assume it wasn't that long ago so, even if the dose was big it's manageable at the hospital - and kids generally cope better with overdoing paracetamol than grown-ups (mostly 'cos they throw up more readily)
Hope the kid is okay. They need to establish the dose ASAP. Take the bottle with you! Paracetamol is given at 120 mg/5 ml. How many ml did the child take. And how big was the bottle? A 70ml bottle contains 1680 mg of paracetamol (just under one day's adult dose). If the infant weighs 10 kilos that is 168 mg/kg. That is a high dose and you'll be seen fast. Tell them this if you are not. Fortunately swift action and an antidote can be given. If the kid is sick, even better.
Drive carefully. And don't forget the bottle. Did I say don't forget the bottle?
'ere, stoner - how's your lad's finger ?
icky but healing. cheers
probably lost the tip but the healing is coming on well.
had a dressing change at the docs this afternoon and due back with the surgeon next week.
He doesnt care though. Makes me all gooey looking at it though...
Got 10mth old grand daughter for her first overnighter next weekend. She is just at the toddling stage. We have been warned about sending her back in one piece unlike her big bro 🙄
When I was a kid I drank half a bottle of Milton fluid, which is pretty much the same thing. Basically, the A and E doctors made me drink milk until I pissed myself, so my top tip is to take some spare clothes. This was 30 years ago mind, medicine may have advanced since then.
Hope the little chap is ok, hardcore drug abuse, he'll be a roadie then.
Good luck man, it may be traumatic but they wont faff over it and he will be fine.
Keep us posted
djaustin - Member
And how big was the bottle? A 70ml bottle contains 1680 mg of paracetamol (just under one day's adult dose).
Normal adult daily dose is 4 g per day (2 x 500mg tablet, 4x a day)
Fingers crossed all is well .... A few months ago our 2 1/2 year old presented us with an empty (large) bottle of calpol, having drunk 80% of the contents. She's fine but that was a fun morning in A&E! We later discovered that she could reach the shelf where the calpol had been, by climbing up the heated towel rail. That'll teach me for taking her bouldering
Doh of course it is 😳 I am was working back from a 200ml bottle, but thought that would be quite a chug! Paediatric dosing is full of pitfalls.
We taught our two to take tablets from an early age, once they reached a 250 mg unit dose. And I always carried a satchet of calpol in my wallet for emergencies. Funny thing is, it was always other kids who needed it. Remarkable if you met Son1 - an accident waiting to happen.
He'll be fine our 2 year old did exactly the same thing. They worked out the toxic dose to be around 1.5 full bottles from his weight.. Didn't evn ask us in.
calpol? or similar? Isn't there about 2 paracetamol in them? Overdose I think not.
faz, depends - I think you can get a 200ml bottle of the 6+ stuff which would be 10grams, plenty for a small child or even an unlucky adult
Just talked to my wife. The boy will need a blood test to verify, but the hospital thinks that he didn't get enough of the bottle to have had the worst effects.
Luckily, he's klutzy enough to have spilled some on the floor before getting it into his mouth.
I never thought I would be pleased that he spills so much.
Good news 🙂
You'll have to call him Onan from now on.I never thought I would be pleased that he spills so much.
good stuff 🙂
* runs around the house testing all the Domestos bottle tops...*
Hope all is well.
Calpol/paracetamol should be taken seriously tbh.
A paediatric dr friend of mine told me about a young kid who's mum was giving them 'Calpol' whilst in Spain, as one teaspoon every so and so (uk dosing). It turns out the Spanish version is about 5 times as concentrated. The kid now has someone else's liver......
DrP
Good to hear things are fine and yes what Dr P said.
Paracetamol OD is serious see so many take it as OD as it's easy to get hold of. It wrecks livers if not caught in time or if taking accidentally too much, don't fob it off.
[i]runs around the house testing all the Domestos bottle tops[/i]
We just put anything 'drinkable' up high until ours were old enough to be able to understand the importance of not drinking it. As the op found these caps aren't fool (or child) proof 100% of the time.
Hope all going well. After a 2am calpolling about a week ago I must have not put the lid back on fully and left the bottle in jrs room. She came in at 6 saying 'me had me medicine now' and waving the empty bottle. Again, call to NHS direct, calculation of max amount in bottle prior to her getting it and then guesstimating of how much was on carpet and pj's. Then relief. Horrible.
Jesus, that's scary. Hope everything is OK with your nipper.
Paracetamol is such a potentially dangerous medication to have around the house in a sweet, drinkable form, safety cap or no safety cap. Especially compared to liquid ibuprofen, which is just as effective (and perhaps even better) at lowering fever.
[b]faz03[/b]calpol? or similar? Isn't there about 2 paracetamol in them? Overdose I think not.
Its precisely that attitude that makes calpol (and paracetemol based medicines in general) a problem.
Firstly by definition anything over the stated dose is an overdose.
The correct dosage for a 2 year old is unto 7.5mL of Calpol Infant every 4 hours. So consuming a 100 mL bottle is 13x overdosed, and a 200 mL bottle is over 26x the dose. That is a bit like an adult taking 26-52 tablets in one go. If it happened to be the large sized bottle of six plus then there is enough paracetemol in there to give an adult liver damage from an overdose, never mind a two year old.
A 100mL bottle of Calpol infant (available in 200 mL size too), contains enough paracetemol to cause toxicity in a 12 kg child. (That is roughly a 2 yr old).
Fortunately bottles are rarely full to start with, kids are usually not very successful at getting the whole lot into them in one go without major spillage etc, and so whilst single incidents like this are likely to give legitimate cause for concern to both parents and doctors serious outcomes are uncommon. However if the child has been taking calpol all day (or for a few days) for some underlying condition then their ability to metabolise the overdose is further affected.
However, IMHO, the bigger problem is parents assuming that "its just paracetemol" and "there's barely any in there" and so giving repeated low level doses over prolonged periods of time, too close together etc.
What poly, Drac and DrP said.
Paracetamol is [i]considerably[/i] more dangerous than people generally give it credit for.
There seems to be a general belief that they are "just little headache pills" and taking a few extra if you are in "real" pain won't do any harm.
It takes surprisingly few paracetamol tablets to seriously damage your liver.
So glad the OP's little un is okay. I have to admit I went and checked where our Calpol bottle was after reading that. Scary times!
Phew - great to hear that everything's ok.
Having done research work on paracetemol at overdose levels, i can only conclude that its a horrible, horrible ending.
its remarkable that its still so freely available.
yeah, it's not said enough - safe in normal doses, bloody dangerous in overdose [b][u]IF LEFT WITHOUT TREATMENT[/u][/b]
however also worth bearing in mind that 80% or so of overdose deaths are from prescription medicines
(paracetamol is under 10%, even when includes multiple drug overdoses and combination products like co-proxamol/co-codamol where the para contribution may not have been the fatal bit)
scaredypants - that's an interesting statistic. Presumably a large %age of 'overdose deaths' were the intended outcome of the patient? Wonder what %age of accidental overdosing is paracetemol related?
*, I hope all is ok. Seriously *. 🙁
DrP, would forcing your kid to drink something that would make them sick help mitigate/reduce the damage?
I know its sodium/salt which isn't good for children but how about warm salty water? Anything else that make someone vomit quickly?
Or just fingers down throat until the gagging reflex kicks in?
Glad Jnr is ok, but to be fair it wouldnt have been my first idea to post on a forum when I know I could have a very sick chold on my hands.
"Having done research work on paracetemol at overdose levels, i can only conclude that its a horrible, horrible ending.
its remarkable that its still so freely available."
Yeah Mrs FD was saying its not a great way to kill yourself quickly, and that generally alot of the serious contenders research it a bit these days, the power of google and all, and its less in favour than it used to be.
IMO doesnt make any difference if its available or not, if you want to kill yourself you will will find some way of doing it regardless.
DO NOT MAKE PEOPLE WHO HAVE TAKEN OVERDOSES VOMIT!
Ah ok. Why?
I think the most worrying comment is ".. we taught ours to swallow tablets early on ...".
I never could as a kid and as a result use bugger all pills these days. I have a mate who seems to take pain killers as a matter of course (he is married to a doctor and she has told him to cut it out).
I usually don't bother having them in the house unless they are there for a specific reason.
Hope the kid is ok - they are far more resilient than we give them credit for. Still don't actually want one myself though.
If this was the US there would be a lawsuit against the bottle mfr by now...!!!
Glad the little chap is ok. 🙂
If it was Australia you could sue the parent who was supervising..
Re different doses in different countries - they say always read the label for a reason.
The ibuprofen tablets we bought in Germany were double the dose of the UK ones. Good job I was checking.
hora - avoiding kack in yer lungs is the reason
(and there's activated charcoal to bind up anything left in the stomach anyway)
Calpol (as in the branded one) also comes in different concentrations [i]just in the UK[/i]: 'infant' is 120mg/5mls and 6+ is 250mg/5mls. Theoretically it is quite possible to make your child very ill by being so used to infant calpol and switching to chugging in the same volume doses of 6+ version every four hours. ('staggered' overdoses as opposed to all in one go are also highly dangerous) With my professional nursie hat on, I think having 2 strengths of the [i]same bleddy brand[/i] is most foolish, particularly now you can get those little syringes with children's drugs that can do you a pretty accurate 1.25mls if you want to.
As an aside, the French are far more used to delivering paracetemol to their children by (waaaaay faster acting and somewhat less appealing to the toddler)suppository. 😯
I think the most worrying comment is ".. we taught ours to swallow tablets early on ...".
Why's that worrying? We didn't teach them to self administer only swallow 😉 . Saved a fortune in medication and really isn't that hard. Half a paracetamol caplet (250mg) is the same size as a tic tac. Have you ever swallowed a tic tac whole? Take a sip of water, hold in the mouth. Insert tablet and swallow. You only get one chance, because the tablets dissolve and the taste is not great. Ibuprofen is just dreadful. Hence the sugar coating.
Why's that worrying?
I was just imagining the training, hadn't realised it was with tic-tac's - excellent work 🙂
Paracetamol is serious stuff. I accidentally took a couple too many in a 24hr window a few months back (effectively a double dose took one lot when igot home from work, forgot i'd done it and took same again half hour later). called nhs direct and was slightly surprised how seriously they took it. Had to give them all the pill info and they went away to check toxicity etc.
Hope your boys on the mend. Our eldest is of similar age so hopefully our cap is screwed on tighter!
I accidentally took a couple too many in a 24hr window a few months back (effectively a double dose took one lot when igot home from work, forgot i'd done it and took same again half hour later). called nhs direct and was slightly surprised how seriously they took it.
So basically you took 4 tabs instead of 2 in maybe 30 mins? Hardly seems OD-ville to me. Did you feel ill?
Paracentmol can be combined with a chemical that makes it much safer in overdosage but the pharmaceutical companies will not do it as it would increase costs
bit harsh on the drug companies TJ - they did market it (Paradote) for quite a while but nobody bought it
(also some people had reservations about safety of methionine taken routinely by "everyone")
Link TJ?
It has to be compulsory or no one will buy it as its more expensive. the pahramacutical companies sucessfully lobbied to have it not made compulsory so we will continue to have people die of paracetomol overdosage regularly - and its a nasty way to die. The ethics of big pharma again.
It has to be compulsory or no one will buy it as its more expensive.
But people still buy branded painkillers at 10x the price...
Thats right - but to add the methionine to them would reduce the drug companies profits so they fought successfully to not have it made compulsory
unless you wanted them to give it away, that's a failure of health regulators you're describing isn't it ??
depending on who you listened to, reputedly a potential teratogen, carcinogen and shown to raise homocysteine levels so possibly inc risk of cardiovascular events
(nausea, headaches, taste, ...)
Yes - but they companies lobbied very hard to get the decision they wanted. I am very cynical about the pharmacy industry since the co promamol stuff decades ago and it still goes on - profits before people
Incidentally, abolition of resale price maintenance by the government (not sure which), much against the wishes of "big pharma" is what's allowed shops to sell paras for almost nothing. Granted, they can only sell 32 tabs at a go but that's plenty
addit:
what co promamol stuff - do you mean co-proxamol ?
what don't you like about that story ? (not having a go - seemed a pretty shit product though the biddies liked it. was then quite sensibly restricted IMO)
depending on who you listened to
It'll only have been one side.
by (not so) happy coincidence i was discussing paracetamol, napqi and glutathione just the other night. the following should just about cover the bases i think -
http://qjmed.oxfordjournals.org/content/95/9/609.full
hope the op's wee one is fine also
Scaredypants - when it first broke about the toxicity of co proxamol it was still under patent ( distalgesic) - the company with the patents ( liully) first move was to appoint a PR firm and go on a PR offensive while people were suffering sever side effects / dying. It took decades to be restricted.
Still at it now -the wiki page on Dsitalgesic controversies is blocked
Lilly are well known for their aggressive advertising and lobbying
OP hope all is ok. Our thoughts are with you and last night we moved his bottles ti a high cupboard.
(They were on his changing table ffs)
"Child proof" is not guaranteed. [url= http://www.cpsc.gov/businfo/regsumpppa.pdf ]This [/url]is worth a read, quite an eye-opener really on the testing of child proof tops. In summary 20% of children aged 42-51 months may still be able to open a bottle within 10 min! 😯 So keep them well out of reach.
From Page 2:
[b]What is a child-resistant package?[/b]
A child-resistant package is one that is designed or
constructed to be significantly difficult for children
under five to open or obtain a harmful amount of the
contents within a reasonable time. The package must
also not be difficult for normal adults to use properly.
For a package to be child-resistant, a total of 80% of
the children tested according to the procedure
summarized below must not open the package during a
full 10 minutes of testing. Please check below for more
information about the level of child-resistance required
during the first five minutes of testing.
To make sure that adults are able to use a childresistant
package properly, 90% of adults tested have
up to five minutes, and then another minute in a second
test, to open and close the package so that it is childresistant
again.