Getting young kids to take their medication can be tough. If you’re a parent, you’ve experienced the frustrating battle in the wee hours of the night trying to give babies or toddlers medicine they just don’t want to take. Worse yet, your child spits up the medication and you start worrying how much they consumed and how much is too much on the next try. The struggle is real!

One alternative hitting the market is a way to safely add flavor to children’s medicine to help mask the bitterness. The reason comes down to this — medicine only works if taken properly — and young patients are more likely to take the full recommended dose with less objections when the flavor is better.

Of course, you should always consult with your child’s doctor before administering any kind of medication, but studies have shown flavoring medicine does not affect the medicine’s effectiveness.

How does medication flavoring work?

To mask the taste of liquid medicine, Intermountain pharmacies are now offering a flavoring service called FLAVORx. It can be used on prescription or over-the-counter liquid medications that may or may not have already been flavored by drug manufacturers. All flavors are dye free, sugar free, and completely safe for food allergies. Additionally, the potency and dosage of the flavored medicine is not affected. For more information and questions around the impact of flavoring medications, please consult an Intermountain pharmacist.

You can request FLAVORx for $1.50, per prescription, with kid-friendly flavors:

• Watermelon
• Strawberry
• Grape
• Orange
• Bubblegum

Why is medication adherence so important?

When a patient is adherent with their recommended medication dosage, they are more likely to have better health outcomes while preventing readmittance to the hospital for the same issue.

“Our goal with this service is to help with medication adherence,” says Buck Stanford, system pharmacy operations director. “Improving the taste of medicine, especially with pediatric patients, is a great way to ensure patients are adherent and receive the best outcomes from their medication therapy.”

Help the medicine go down

 Order medication flavoring for your child at one of Intermountain’s 27 pharmacies throughout Utah. To find your nearest Intermountain pharmacy and learn more about this flavoring service, please visit http://intermountainrx.org/