Kiddo had her booster DPT today. Much, much less traumatic than expected. Maybe it was the ice pack before that numbed the area, or maybe it was the nurse yelling, 'abracadabra, sim salavim!' right in her face. Whatever it was, it worked. No crying at all!! Just a rather bemused look on her face. What I call the 'is it worth bursting into tears' look. All in all it was ok until about 5pm, right after her Dora show (fancy that!), when she started to complain of an ouchie arm. Then came a bit of drama during the attempt to remove the plaster. Lots of cringing and shuddering and groans and whimpers. Following which mummy got fed up and ripped the half hanging plaster off in one fell swoop. Heh heh heh... (evil mummy) She was NOT amused. 'Stop laughing at me!!! It's NOT funny!!!' In any case, I decided to give her a dose of paracetamol before things got worse. On picking up the bottle, I saw printed on the side : 4-6yrs 1.5 teaspoons (1 teaspoon is about 5mls but NOT ACCURATE! Dosing spoons are infinitely safer), 160mg/5 ml, not more than 5 times a day.
Ok, at this point, all I could think was, 'please tell me I've checked the dosage in the past...' because for my kiddo, that would be an overdose. And as one of my consultants once said, 'Paracetamol should be a controlled drug. It's the easiest and nastiest way to kill yourself. It poisons your liver and you die horribly...' I remember shipping patients off to liver units with everyone up in arms over the fact that a much needed liver would be going to someone who willfully destroyed their own. Anyway, that's an argument I definitely don't want to start...
Back to kiddo's paracetamol. The recommended paediatric dose is 10-15mg/kg (UK 10, Aus 15) up to 4 times a day. Australia then caps the dose at 60mg/kg/day. Being UK trained, I go by 10mg/kg. That would bring kiddo's dose to 160mg 4 times a day. Total = 640mg/day max. 960mg a day if you use the higher Australian recommendation. Using the dosage suggested on the bottle, she would be taking 240mg 5 times a day. Total = 1200mg. That's 87.5% more than what she should be having!! Which also works out 25% more than even the higher Australian recommended dosage!! Last year at age 4 she was 14kg. Going by the dosage on the side of the bottle, she would have received 114% of her recommended daily dose! I shudder to imagine how much paracetamol parents out there are unknowingly giving their children thinking the dosage on the bottle can be trusted. Yikes!
From now on, I'm checking the dose of every drug that comes into this house. No more assuming the dose printed on the bottle is correct. After all, you know what they say about assumptions... If you assume, you make an ASS out of U and ME... So before you dose your kid, just do a quick google check on the recommended dose for that particular drug. Much easier to check than to deal with the consequences of damaged internal organs. Oh... and buy a dosing spoon. Teaspoons and tablespoons are only good for eating, not administering medicines...
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