When is a medication considered absorbed before vomiting?
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1. Counselling Conundrum: a real question from a patient
2. Concise Conclusion: a straight-forward patient-friendly answer
3. Quick Wrap-up
Clearly, there are nuances that may not be captured in this format. The goal here is to provide you with helpful counselling tips which often draw from multiple sources or those which are not commonly accessed by busy healthcare providers serving the community.
Counselling Conundrum: "My 3 year old vomited around 2 hours after she took her amoxicillin. Is that a problem or should I give her another dose?
Concise Conclusion: Typically, the dose will have already been absorbed if it's been longer than 1 hour. That being said, it should be fine.
Quick Wrap-up: This is a good rule of thumb, and applies to the majority of meds. However, remember to also consider the following reasons to NOT re-dose, in addition to all patient-specific factors like medical conditions, age, and so on:
-sublingual/buccal meds
-vomiting is chronic
-prescribed by specialist; consult them first
-extended-release, long half-life, delayed impact on patient
-an extra dose would be very harmful
Some exceptions to the rule of thumb include some oral contraceptives and hepatitis C medications, for which the usual threshold should be 3 hours instead.
In contrast to most cases, should the medication be seen in the vomitus, then it is unlikely that an acceptable dose has been absorbed and it is advisable to re-dose.
Dive Deeper
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