quick Decadron help

Kate · #1 11-11-2011, 05:18 PM

So just got off the phone with ped. Mitchell has been pretty sick and he was just checking up. He mentioned Decadron-I said-oh we have some here.

Long story short--as prescribed from his ENT it says take 2 the first 2 days and then take 1 the 3rd.

Now the ped. said-take them all. (which would be 10 mg) He said he likes to do it all at once for this type of illness and it makes them jittery so good to get in and out as fast as you can??

The reason I question this is that when we've given it to him before he was pretty jittery on this routine-I can't imagine giving all 5 at once??

I think I'm just going to give as prescribed. ??? I'm kind of scared to give the full 5 (10mg) all at once on a Friday night?? KWIM?

teachkjg · #2 11-11-2011, 09:36 PM

My Isaac is a decadron pro..... in liquid form I've been told by his ENT that it is pretty "watered down" we have done 8mg at a time with him with no problems..... I'm not sure about it in pill form, but we've done really high doses with Isaac when things got rough!

Livi's_mama · #3 11-12-2011, 12:22 AM

No no no no no. I sure as hello wouldn't!

Liv uses this now to get through sickness from chemo and it makes her an insomniac. She didn't sleep for 3 days straight this last go round.

How you are prescribed is how we went home on it. It's a steroid that needs to be weaned too.

mpgolden · #4 11-13-2011, 12:55 AM

My trached son has never had Decadron. However, my daughter has had it many times. She would get the croup all of the time, especially when the weather changed. Our doctor always gave her a decadron shot. It worked wonderfully for her. After she got the shot that morning, she would always come home and sleep most of the afternoon. Upon awakening, she would be back to her normal self and her stridor was gone. When given the choice between a shot and oral steroids I picked the shot every time. The oral steroids made her so cranky and jittery but the shot had no side effects for her at all. She has now outgrown the croup (thank goodness) but when she was younger she had several decadron shots a year. I always wished we could just have the shot here at home so we wouldnt have to visit the doctor so much.

Melinda Golden
Mom to Noah; CCHS; trached and vented while sleeping
Mom to Beth and Hannah

Kate · #5 11-13-2011, 07:09 AM

I ended up just giving it to him. All at once. He didn't get jittery at all-I was very surprised as typically he would. He really is not feeling well, STILL after a week. I see some improvements but really it should be more. Now again this morning he spiked another temp. GRRRRR. This illness is driving me crazy. I can't imagine how he feels. Poor kid

Thanks for the responses. I was very reluctant to give it to him, to be honest I don't even know that it did anything.