Generic vs Name Brand - the case for Zithromax

Our little one year old dude has been sick with some kind of lung infection/pneumonia.

We took him to the doctor, who prescribed Azithromycin.  Good enough.  What's nice about that particular antibiotic is that it only has to be taken once a day, and then only for 5 days.  Some of the other antibiotics can be 3 times a day for 10 days.  Not too shabby right?

Well, the first dose is a biggie, then it tapers off for other four.  We thought we'd be clever and go with two half-doses at the start, since we've learned with our gag-prone daughter not to push our luck, lest you get a big spit-up and run out of medicine.

So we tried the half-dose. Gag.  Followed by barf.  Darn it.  We waited a little while, then tried again.  Gag, then spit-up (at least no bits of food this time!)

OK. Time to start googling for "how to get azithromycin into your kid."  I usually consider my google-fu pretty strong, but I came up with nothing.  We tried another half-dose 12 hours later or so.  Gag.  Vomit.

Medicine 3 : Parents 0

I managed to get a little on my fingers, so I gave it a taste.  If you ever had that nail polish as a kid that was supposed to keep you from biting your fingernails, you know *exactly* what this stuff tastes like.  Only with a hint of medicine-y alco-cherry.

We tried one or two more times with no luck.  Masking it with yogurt/pudding didn't do the trick either.
My father-in-law is a doctor, so we asked him for some ideas.  He suggested trying the name-brand stuff - Zythromax.  I'm usually not one to buy into that whole name-brand thing, but it was all we had.  So we called the doctor back with our story, and the suggestion.

She agreed it was worth a shot, and wrote a new specific prescription.  Funny aside - Shoppers Drug Mart wouldn't/couldn't fill it because they are in some kind of spat over generics vs name-brands with the government.  Just as well, we like to support our little shop local pharmacist anyhow.

Got home, and tried the zythromax.  Full dose.  Success!  No gag, no vomit.  Rest of the doses - no sweat.

So there you have it, the answer for how to get azithromycin into your kid: get the name-brand Zithromax kind.