Post by Amy Lombardi on Mar 30, 2009 9:41:32 GMT -5
Subject: chloral hydrate???
Name: chantelle
Date Posted: Sep 3, 08 - 3:42 AM
Email: Click here to Email
Message: hi there,
my son Zac (INCL) has started trialling chloral hydrate to help him sleep at night time. It is a sedative. I was just wondering if any other parents have used this drug?? Did anyone see a huge benefit from it? It is very costly so unless it is really going to help I dont want it to just be another to add to the thingytail he already has.
Does anyone know of any bad side effects?
Of course I would love for Zac to sleep through the night but not if it means he is going to be drowsy & less responsive during the day.
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated, with new medications Im always suspicious
Name: Nori
Date Posted: Sep 3, 08 - 5:35 AM
Email: Click here to Email
Message: One of my sons used Chloral Hydrate for years. At first is sort of helped, but not completely. Now that I look back on it, it quickly became less and less effective, eventually not working at all. Why we kept him on it for so long I really cannot explain except that we were so desperate for him to sleep that we were afraid not to use it for fear it would get worse.
Chloral Hydrate is one of the oldest drugs out there. It was typically used in the hospital for pre-surgical patients etc. The problem with it is that it can supress breathing. Usually to induce sleep it has to be used in large doses and can be dangerous. Tyson had JNCL and he started Chloral Hydrate at about 8 or 9. He took 1500 mg every night! He was drowsy and napped off and on all day every day. If I had it to do over I would not use it at all. By the way when we used it it was very cheap! Ask your doctor and pharmasist why it's so expensive now
Google it and you will see it is certainly not a benign drug.
Good luck, I feel for you I know only too well what its like to have you child up all night every night!
Name: Corrina Dahl
Date Posted: Sep 3, 08 - 9:44 AM
Message: I don't know anything about Chloral hydrate per se but one of my son's dr's said that sleep meds can often have the opposite affect on children, instead of making them sleepy they can get hyper.
Clifford took a sleep med for about a year before he started having seizures and taking meds for that and his behavior. The med (whose name I can't remember now) seemed to work ok at first but by the end of the year he was only sleeping 6 hours a night on a good night.
So, I would take Nori's advice, read up on it and see if you think its right for your child. I would remember too that you can try something and if it seems to not be working or you don't like the side effects you can always stop it or try something else.
Name: jocelyn
Date Posted: Sep 3, 08 - 5:58 PM
Message: Hi
I have been using chloral hydrate for about 12 months now on both of my children. I have not had any problems as far as breathing goes and have found it is working really well for us. We use it on our youngest child to help her sleep at night and get 9 - 10 hours of undistubed sleep for all of us.
We don't use it all the time but if after there meds they are not going to sleep we give it to them. We find our kids have periods when they are really good and then have a week or so when they seem to deteriorate and it is these times they seem to have more diffuculty going to sleep.
We also use it for seizures as well, when they start to get small twitches before anything major kicks in I give start at 2 - 3 mls (liquid form) and if after 10 minutes if twitching continues I give a ml at a time until they stop. We have had great success using it this way with no other medication changes. Our dr is an older gentleman and tells us that this was an older drug which is not used as much anymore.
We live in Australia and don't have any trouble with the cost as it is a subsidised medication, I don't know if that is the same in the US. I would recommed trying it starting with 1 ml at a time increasing after 10 minutes by 1ml again until it kicks in. Some kids have a higher tolerance to it. My son has anywhere between 5 - 10ml before it works, whereas my daughter has never had more than 5ml at any one time before it works for her.
I think only using it as needed instead of a regular med is working for us as they can go for a few weeks without it and then it works well when we really do need it.
Hope this helps
Regards
Jocelyn
Name: chantelle
Date Posted: Sep 4, 08 - 2:59 AM
Email: Click here to Email
Message: Thank you for the feedback, I will be raising all the issues stated with my sons doctor. The breathing issue especially.
We have tried it for 1 night now- 4mls at bedtime. It worked straight away, my son was asleep by 9pm but extremely noisy & hyper by 2am. So tonight I am waiting until I head to bed to give it, might get a extra hour or 2 sleep.
We live in New Zealand so maybe that is why the cost is so high but I will look in to this also.
Its so great to have this forum for some extra insight & words of wisdom. People reply so fast, as we all know waiting for answers is dreadful.
Thanks again
Name: Tanya
Date Posted: Oct 23, 08 - 7:09 AM
Email: Click here to Email
Message: Hi Chantelle
This feedback to your query comes very late, but I hope it is still useful. My daughter, Isla, who's 2 and a half and has INCL, takes chloral hydrate each night. It is the only sleep medication we have found works for Isla. She has 400mg at bedtime, then another 200mg to get her back to sleep each time she wakes in the night, which is usually 2-3 times (in other words, at 3-4 hourly intervals). It's not a perfect solution, but at least Isla usually goes back to sleep. I haven't noticed Isla having any breathing problems.
Isla's sleep became very bad before she commenced anti-seizure medication (first Epilim and now Keppra and frisium as well). These medications seemed to have a settling effect that prevented Isla from having the hours of wakefulness at night that she was previously experiencing. She still wakes, but generally gets back to sleep fairly quickly with the chloral hydrate.
Good luck.
Name: chantelle
Date Posted: Sep 3, 08 - 3:42 AM
Email: Click here to Email
Message: hi there,
my son Zac (INCL) has started trialling chloral hydrate to help him sleep at night time. It is a sedative. I was just wondering if any other parents have used this drug?? Did anyone see a huge benefit from it? It is very costly so unless it is really going to help I dont want it to just be another to add to the thingytail he already has.
Does anyone know of any bad side effects?
Of course I would love for Zac to sleep through the night but not if it means he is going to be drowsy & less responsive during the day.
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated, with new medications Im always suspicious
Name: Nori
Date Posted: Sep 3, 08 - 5:35 AM
Email: Click here to Email
Message: One of my sons used Chloral Hydrate for years. At first is sort of helped, but not completely. Now that I look back on it, it quickly became less and less effective, eventually not working at all. Why we kept him on it for so long I really cannot explain except that we were so desperate for him to sleep that we were afraid not to use it for fear it would get worse.
Chloral Hydrate is one of the oldest drugs out there. It was typically used in the hospital for pre-surgical patients etc. The problem with it is that it can supress breathing. Usually to induce sleep it has to be used in large doses and can be dangerous. Tyson had JNCL and he started Chloral Hydrate at about 8 or 9. He took 1500 mg every night! He was drowsy and napped off and on all day every day. If I had it to do over I would not use it at all. By the way when we used it it was very cheap! Ask your doctor and pharmasist why it's so expensive now
Google it and you will see it is certainly not a benign drug.
Good luck, I feel for you I know only too well what its like to have you child up all night every night!
Name: Corrina Dahl
Date Posted: Sep 3, 08 - 9:44 AM
Message: I don't know anything about Chloral hydrate per se but one of my son's dr's said that sleep meds can often have the opposite affect on children, instead of making them sleepy they can get hyper.
Clifford took a sleep med for about a year before he started having seizures and taking meds for that and his behavior. The med (whose name I can't remember now) seemed to work ok at first but by the end of the year he was only sleeping 6 hours a night on a good night.
So, I would take Nori's advice, read up on it and see if you think its right for your child. I would remember too that you can try something and if it seems to not be working or you don't like the side effects you can always stop it or try something else.
Name: jocelyn
Date Posted: Sep 3, 08 - 5:58 PM
Message: Hi
I have been using chloral hydrate for about 12 months now on both of my children. I have not had any problems as far as breathing goes and have found it is working really well for us. We use it on our youngest child to help her sleep at night and get 9 - 10 hours of undistubed sleep for all of us.
We don't use it all the time but if after there meds they are not going to sleep we give it to them. We find our kids have periods when they are really good and then have a week or so when they seem to deteriorate and it is these times they seem to have more diffuculty going to sleep.
We also use it for seizures as well, when they start to get small twitches before anything major kicks in I give start at 2 - 3 mls (liquid form) and if after 10 minutes if twitching continues I give a ml at a time until they stop. We have had great success using it this way with no other medication changes. Our dr is an older gentleman and tells us that this was an older drug which is not used as much anymore.
We live in Australia and don't have any trouble with the cost as it is a subsidised medication, I don't know if that is the same in the US. I would recommed trying it starting with 1 ml at a time increasing after 10 minutes by 1ml again until it kicks in. Some kids have a higher tolerance to it. My son has anywhere between 5 - 10ml before it works, whereas my daughter has never had more than 5ml at any one time before it works for her.
I think only using it as needed instead of a regular med is working for us as they can go for a few weeks without it and then it works well when we really do need it.
Hope this helps
Regards
Jocelyn
Name: chantelle
Date Posted: Sep 4, 08 - 2:59 AM
Email: Click here to Email
Message: Thank you for the feedback, I will be raising all the issues stated with my sons doctor. The breathing issue especially.
We have tried it for 1 night now- 4mls at bedtime. It worked straight away, my son was asleep by 9pm but extremely noisy & hyper by 2am. So tonight I am waiting until I head to bed to give it, might get a extra hour or 2 sleep.
We live in New Zealand so maybe that is why the cost is so high but I will look in to this also.
Its so great to have this forum for some extra insight & words of wisdom. People reply so fast, as we all know waiting for answers is dreadful.
Thanks again
Name: Tanya
Date Posted: Oct 23, 08 - 7:09 AM
Email: Click here to Email
Message: Hi Chantelle
This feedback to your query comes very late, but I hope it is still useful. My daughter, Isla, who's 2 and a half and has INCL, takes chloral hydrate each night. It is the only sleep medication we have found works for Isla. She has 400mg at bedtime, then another 200mg to get her back to sleep each time she wakes in the night, which is usually 2-3 times (in other words, at 3-4 hourly intervals). It's not a perfect solution, but at least Isla usually goes back to sleep. I haven't noticed Isla having any breathing problems.
Isla's sleep became very bad before she commenced anti-seizure medication (first Epilim and now Keppra and frisium as well). These medications seemed to have a settling effect that prevented Isla from having the hours of wakefulness at night that she was previously experiencing. She still wakes, but generally gets back to sleep fairly quickly with the chloral hydrate.
Good luck.