Liquid medication bottle
Such is the case with the growing use of special oral syringes for accurate and convenient dosing of liquid medications, especially in children. Unfortunately, last week I heard of a negative consequence. A little boy was taking a chronic antiarrhythmic medication called Tambocor for a serious condition that makes his heart beat too fast.
The drug works by slowing down electrical impulses between the upper and lower chambers of the heart, allowing it to beat normally. A pharmacy compounded a liquid suspension and properly dispensed it in a prescription bottle with a childproof cap.
The pharmacy gave the family an oral syringe and bottle stopper that fits the syringe to facilitate removal and measurement of the suspension. After using the stopper with the syringe, the family did not remove it from the medicine bottle to replace it with the child proof cap. One evening the family saw their child coming up the stairs with a nearly empty bottle of the medicine in his hand. Somehow, when the child went into the refrigerator to get a juice bottle, he instead picked up the medicine bottle and was able to get at the suspension and drink most of it.
I hope to learn soon about his condition. Right now my thoughts are with the family. If each bottle of liquid contains mL and if a dose is 20mL, how many doses are in the bottle? Another way to do this problem would be to set up:. Aug 30 Gavin J. Create a Free Account to Continue Already have an account? Sign up with facebook Or. Create password Reveal Please Include: How did you hear about us?
However, dosing errors have occurred with them. Always check to make sure the units teaspoon, tablespoon, mL, or cc on the cup or syringe match the units of the dose you want to give. Liquid medicines often do not taste good, but many flavors are now available and can be added to any liquid medicine.
Principles of drug therapy. Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics. Analysis of liquid medication dose errors made by patients and caregivers using alternative measuring devices.
J Manag Care Pharm.