Alternating pain medications?

WinesNotWhines · January 2012

This is kind of a s/o on my teething post, but I've read that you can alternate ibuprofen and tylenol and kind of double up on them if one med is not effective. For example, infant ibuprofen can be dosed every 6-8 hours and tylenol can be dosed every 4-6 hours. I've read that if you give a dose of one medication and it's not really working, you can give a dose of the other medication before the time limit of the first one is up. So, say, if you gave Motrin at 2 pm and it's not doing much by 4 pm, you could go ahead and give some Tylenol. Is this true and have you done this?

(I will probably ask the pedi about this at our next visit (in 2 weeks), but it did not seem like something I should've called the on-call number about at 1 am this morning, desperate as I was. I'm wondering what mom wisdom is on this.)

2vthokies · January 2012

I've done this before when my DDs have been really sick (with HFM, strep or RSV) and been in a lot of pain or high fever. You can alternate every three hours. Our reg ped recommends this (and with Round 1 of RSV she told us to do it for many days). We recently saw someone else (same practice) and when I asked if we should do it (second round of RSV) and she was really hesitant. Check with your ped to see what they recommend.

For teething, I've had good luck ibuprofen and Camilia (homeopathic).

MrsPhilDunphy · January 2012

I've never done this for teething because Motrin has always worked just fine, but our pedi recommended it recently for a double ear infection and RSV whammy with 104 fever. In fact, she was telling us to give even more than the prescribed amount and said the bottle underdosed, but obviously I wouldn't have done that with out her go ahead.

mommmyz · January 2012

Our pedi gave us the okay to do this when DS had RSV as well, for about 24 hours. I've also done it myself when I had terrible tooth pain right before a root canal (so it works for grown ups too!). I'd really suggest making a note of what you give when though - it can get a little confusing with all those meds and doses, especially if you are struggling with lack of sleep from a sick/teething kiddo!

mssaint · January 2012

The urgent care doc told us we could do this when LO had a double ear infection and cold (and teething!) if we felt like one wasn't cutting it.

kafunder · January 2012

We did this for the LOs when they were in extreme discomfort after their bad reactions to the chicken pox vaccine. It really helped. We were already doing it, but our pedi also recommended it.