Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.....

In addition to sensory processing disorder my sweet Caleb is also OCD - obsessive compulsive disorder - which can create problems in taking medicine. It means you MUST have a schedule or a rhythm to everything. It means you must eliminate any and all clutter which becomes chaos to him (thus overloading the senses). I haven't accomplished all of this yet but I am working on it. Caleb had his rhythm down for taking his medicine and I left to go out of town on business for over a week.....breaking the rhythm for him. Then I left to go on a cruise with my sister, mom, and daughter (along with 3 aunts and a cousin) again breaking the rhythm. So the battle began in trying to establish the routine for taking meds. We fought....every morning. Some days I won. A couple of days he won. But after many trials over the past couple of weeks I think I have found his new rhythm.

a little of this:


medicine inside the reeses peanut butter cup:


the bribe:


and a timer set at 10 minutes.
With the instructions -- you must take both meds before the timer goes off...
at that time you can choose ONE bakugan from the 3 pak for your treat.

Caleb is fixated on bakugans right now (one week it might be legos or cars or the ds).  So I tried the if you take your meds for 5 days straight then you can buy a package of bakugans -- which worked but it was still a tug a war to do this.  So hence the timer and immediate reward.
The first 2 days he didn't make it before the timer went off.  It was sad for both of us that he didn't get to choose the bakugan.  But today -- SUCCESS!!!!






Notice he still has the medicine in his mouth trying to chew it up and swallow -- the taste is hard on him.  I am so PROUD of my little guy for finally beating the clock!!!!

I will probably go broke but some things are just worth it.

For now the doctor is out.....headed to Toys R Us, Target, and WalMart to buy more bakugans!!!