[shygirl]

Everytime my daughter gets any medicine she gets completely hyperactive for hours and hours.
she never gets this affect from sweets or chocolate - its just the medicines that make really make her high.
i though id have at look at the ingredients in the medicine to see what it contains.

according to the UKfoodguide.net website, they are full of horrors.

even good old calpol has 3 preservatives and 1 colouring that are all listed as "not recommended for consumption by children". not only that - they are banned from france and australia! E214, E216, E218, E122


the chemists cheapo paracetamol brand - Fenpaed  - has 2 additives not recommended for children. one of which is noted as causing hyperactivity in kids. E217 and E219

how bad is that?makes me really angry. i asked the health visitor why medicines affected her so badly but she wasnt sure. its shocking that we are told to give this stuff to sick kids. grrr

does anyone know of a child safe paracetamol for kids with coughs and colds? or do they not exist?
now i know why i couldnt buy calpol in oz, but i also couldnt get the kids to swallow the australian medicines.


http://ukfoodguide.net/e219.htm
"Not recommended to be consumed by children.
The Hyperactive Childrens Support Group believe that a link exists between this additive and hyperactive behavioural disorders in children.
Not permitted for use in France or Australia."

[RUSTYME]

Yes sg , it is disgusting to say the least . Many also contain aspartame .
Paracetamol wouldn't pass the tests that are 'meant' to protect the public today , it is not a good drug to take .
Why are these things in drugs ? , basically big pharma is totally corrupt .  Fit and healthy people are not in their interest . The sicker people are , or think they are , the more money they make , and they make billions .

[HesterF]

Suspect they're in there to make them more palatable to small children and I can say they take Calpol a lot more easily than they did the alternatives we had in Sweden and Switzerland which were probably safer but spat out (and once they've spat it out, you're into a concern about whether to give them more to be effective or would that overdose them). How old is your daughter? We used suppositories in Switzerland which were fast acting and no additives but clearly only useful while they're tiny (three max before they really start questioning what you're doing!). Best bet is to ask the pharmacist - I would hope they'd be able to help,

H

[plumseverywhere]

Something that's irritated me for a long time too - my eldest is very sensitive to certain additives and calpol used to have her bouncing off the ceiling and when she was really ill, the hyperactivity element just made her even more tearful and frustrated      Same with 'sugar free' squash, is it aspartme? or something like that, she was a nightmare, we give her the 'normal' stuff and nag her to clean her teeth more often.

[Mammyshaz]

I found Boots own brand paracetamol for kids much better. I don't know what's in it but certainly reduced hyperactivity and diarrhoea in my eldest son when he was little. I had to ask for it at the pharmacy, it wasn't for sale on the shelf.

[Herdygirl]

I always used Fennings cooling powders for my children when they needed something for a temperature.
 
No climbing the walls.  i used to mix it up with a spoonful of jam.

[mowhaugh]

It is scary, isn't it.

Be careful, though, Fenpaed is infant ibuprofen, Parapaed is the paracetamol one.  Can you tell I have been through all of them due to the hyper thing???

I have also found the least awful one is from Boots, I never actually buy it but get it on minor ailments (is that available in England and Wales?) but it is the one in a sort of yellowy box, with a teddy on it.

[Spinningfishwife]

You can get additive free unsweetened liquid paracetamol for children from the pharmacist but it tastes foul, good luck with getting a small child to take it! Once they've got big enough (weight, not age) to take the minimum adult dose of paracetamol though it's much easier but you have to teach them how to swallow tablets first of course.

However if your child is unwell, in pain and running a temperature it's the lesser of two evils just to give them the coloured sweetened stuff imho. There are a lot of different supermarket own brands, even Lidl have a version. Might be worth looking around and seeing which is the least obnoxious combination? It's not as if they get fed it on a daily basis after all, not unless they've got a long term health condition.