Best-tasting cold medicine ever: Dimetapp Elixir Cold & Allergy “Yummy Grape Taste!” Smooth, Kool-Aid texture and tastes like a melted grape popsicle. And it dries you up & puts you right to sleep!

I could drink this stuff by the quart—which is perhaps why they only allow you to purchase 1 bottle at a time at Costco. (Heh, heh…….heh.)

But you’re right: my kids act like I’m trying to force a liter of rubber cement down their craws when I prance towards them, grinning like a dope and singing something like, “Ooooh, yum! Grape-popsicle medicine time!” And my youngest child’s six years old, for Pete’s sake!…

I have to agree Dimetap was the family favorite. However, with tasters, Tang is truly the answer! I could’ve told ya that the bubblegum was the worst! Yick!

heh, HoB1KenOB, you made me laugh with that Vitaball thing! I love it!

I have, indeed, seen many a child (AND adult) struggle in the face of ill-tasting “medication” (my Physician has reprimanded me for my habit of calling my meds – yes MULTIPLE meds – MYRIAD meds – two pill boxes and various inhalers AND I had to get a bigger box for the night – DRUGS). I maintain that when you have to take as much medicine as I you can say DRUGS – DRUGS, DRUGS, DRUGS – I TAKE LOTS OF DRUGS!!!)

Where was I? Oh yes. Getting the medicine INTO the children. I have participated in this activity, being an Aunt a number of times over, and I grant it isn’t always easy. But have you ever “pilled” a cat? I’ve had to “pill” my Kitten Child, Beatrice Alessandra Gatto (Be Be) a number of times. In one instance it was three times a day. You have to scruff the feline enough to force the pill (sometimes or liquid, come to think of it) into the mouth of said animal. Then, if it’s a pill, you are encouraged to massage the throat of the animal to help them swallow it. And BOTH of my Kitten Children have taken at least one course of liquid antibiotics. Ironically, they’ve always been given the VERY SAME bubble-gum pink nasty amoxicillin that you give to children. Consider the potential for difficulty with the children and plug sharper teeth and claws (and less willingness to reason with you) into the equation. Oh yes – and BeBe had to take eye drops for her Rhinotracheitis (that’s EYE HERPES). That was a treat.

I’m with you, Jenny – kids lack the hardiness of our ancestors. Moreover, perhaps kids today are just spoiled with too many choices – I only remember the options of Sucrets and grape Triaminic for the garden variety cold and Flinstone vitamins – oh yes, and fluoride tablets and “Swish Swash” for preventive care. And we LIKED IT. And they always took your temperature RECTALLY (none of this pansy ear stuff). And we LIKED it. Wait – no, we did not like that. Besides, I’ve always had asthma and pneumonia and allergies blah blah, so when I was quite little I had to be manually “pertussed”; this involves being hung upside down by your feet while someone pounds on your back HARD trying to loosen the mucus in your bronchi so you can hork it up (I believe “hork” is the correct technical term in this scenario). I kid you not. Yum. And then shots – allergy shots for years – I had to have THREE shots instead of the usual TWO so I wouldn’t blow up like that Willie Wonka blueberry girl (which I did occasionally anyway – except not blue, just blown up). And penicillin shots. The medicine jammed half-way in my “hip” once and they JIGGLED IT AROUND and then had to start a new one on the other side. I didn’t sit comfortably for a week. Yet I have ASKED for penicillin shots so I don’t have to get bigger drug boxes (okay – “medication” boxes) for all the blasted pills.

I think that the medicine available for children in the sixties and seventies built CHARACTER. Now you can plunge a seventeen gauge needle into either of my arms (this is a REALY BIG needle – not one those itty-bitty diabetes/allergy shot needles) and I won’t even flinch. I’ll just express pride in my great veins. And I can swallow a HANDFUL of pills, GINORMOUS freakin’ pills with no problem. Some people have found this impressive. Perhaps I’ll join a freak show. And if I actually get to use cough syrup – I say IF – usually I’m saddled with some variety of horse pills (saddled – horse pills – hah), or I have to spend hours of the day breathing mist from a nebulizer (flavored, I believe, with the essence of the exhaust from a 1964 Chevy Nova) – WAIT!!!! That was so long and parenthetical that I lost track of the original clause. Ah yes, IF I actually get to use cough syrup, it is prescription stuff so strong that they couldn’t POSSIBLY cover up the reeking essence of DEATH in it. I think it may BE turpentine, Jenny. However, I admit I have NOT tried it with Tang®. Nevertheless, I suspect it would be like one of this NASTY cortico-steriod maintenance inhalers I used to take – Aerobid M. They also make plain Aerobid. I once asked what the difference was between the two and was told that they used menthol as a flavoring agent in the Aerobid M version. I thought this was really funny. I sincerely think it DEGRADED the taste of what was just purely nasty medicine; it was like like LICKING Vick’s Vapor Rub – talk about “powerless in the face of such evil.”

Just two last thoughts: 1) I like Tang®! I feel nostalgic now & would like some Tang® so I can be an ASTRONAUT. 2) Pineapple-flavored Prozac? For a bird? I cannot decide if I LOVE this idea or I think it is a sign of the Apocalypse.

First, in defense of my “between” generation, somewhere between yours and your kids,’ my sisters and I LOVED grape Dimmetapp. It was the BEST medicine on the market.

When one of us–therefore, all of us, inevetably–got a cold, we line up in a push and shove fashion for the stuff. Elisabeth even overdosed once and had to be given syrup of Ipecac to reverse the situation.

We weren’t the “Mm! This tastes like a grape popsicle” kind; We were the “MMM! This popsicle tastes like Dimmetapp!” kind. I am so sad that my younger cousins don’t appreciate heaven when they taste it.

Second, Tang is a treasure for all. Everyone should appreciate Tang.

Third and Last, did anyone ever try the RED Dimmetapp? THAT was VILE. I remember the first time I had to take it. I expected that it would be some delicious sister to the grape flavor, but my mouth was violated with the most disgusting, burning, mediciney flavor that had entered it up till then.

Hate to state the obvious, but can you not just get them to eat fresh fruit and veg?

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Jenny, I originally poo-pooed my girls’ objections to the Flintstones Chewables. But after they migrated to Gummy Vites we still had half a bottle of the Chewables left, so, not wanting to waste them, I decided to finish the bottle off myself. By the time they were gone, I’d really learned to hate that unpleasant, bitter vitamin aftertaste.

Hobie, you can often find me with a Vitaball in my pocket…and I’m happy to see you, too. Sometimes adult vitamins upset my stomach if I take them on a semi-empty stomach, but I don’t have that problem with Vitaballs.

Clare, my girls are pretty good about eating fresh fruit and veg, so the multivitamin is really only there to fill in the occasional nutritional hole and to make sure they’re getting enough Vitamin D in the winter.

This whole post and comments is giving me the heebeegeebees! I remember as a kid standing on a chair for my weekly dose of cod liver oil followed by the BRIGHT YELLOW LIQUID vitamin gunk that was just a potent as the cod liver oil. To this day I can taste them both in my memory – GAK!

Another one of mom’s lovely home remedies was to administer all injections right there in the front room. She would smack you in the chosen part of your flesh , one, two, three, (shove the needle in)INJECT INJECT INJECT seven, eight, nine, ten! After all that whacking we were supposed to have not “felt” the injection. Happy Mother’s Day to YOU!

I am not found of ill tasting ANYTHING in my nouth or anywhere near my face. SYAT AWAY! MAKE THE BAD MAN STOP! Nope it ain’t happenin’ to s’mee anymore! I am woman! Hear me Snore! I WILL NOT TAKE IT! I won’t do Pepto Bismol without being under heavy anesthesia. No Sucrets, No HALLS, No liquid anything!

Yikes, now I need to go back into therapy again.

This whole post and comments is giving me the heebeegeebees! I remember as a kid standing on a chair for my weekly dose of cod liver oil followed by the BRIGHT YELLOW LIQUID vitamin gunk that was just a potent as the cod liver oil. To this day I can taste them both in my memory – GAK!

Another one of mom’s lovely home remedies was to administer all injections right there in the front room. She would smack you in the chosen part of your flesh , one, two, three, (shove the needle in)INJECT INJECT INJECT seven, eight, nine, ten! After all that whacking we were supposed to have not “felt” the injection. Happy Mother’s Day to YOU!

I am not found of ill tasting ANYTHING in my nouth or anywhere near my face. SYAT AWAY! MAKE THE BAD MAN STOP! Nope it ain’t happenin’ to s’mee anymore! I am woman! Hear me Snore! I WILL NOT TAKE IT! I won’t do Pepto Bismol without being under heavy anesthesia. No Sucrets, No HALLS, No liquid anything!

Yikes, now I need to go back into therapy again.

Hobie, beware [socially] of the Vitaballs’ potent food-coloring: they tend to have the same effect on your teeth and gums as those nasty bright-pink “disclosing tablets” they’d give you in school to scare you into brushing your teeth.

Unfortunately, Vitaballs do not come in lovely pastels and fleshy pinks. Instead, you end up with a turquoise or neon-orange smile. Must.Brush.Afterwards. Or follow it with a chaser of Trident…

Here’s the funny thing, Jenny. I never questioned the idea of the pet bird taking Prozac, I realize it’s given to quite a few animals (often for the very reasons you mentioned). I’m sure a dog in my family has had it at some point (some of them licked a wound or just arbitrarily licked a paw until it was nasty and bleeding…OCD). What I was curious about was the FLAVORING. The PINEAPPLE flavoring. Is Chico a tropical bird? Was the logic that the pineapple flavoring would take him back to the old days at home? Do birds EAT pineapples?

Hobie! I’m exceedingly SLOW, but I finally figured out WHO YOU ARE – I have your number, girl. Ah, yes, the small animal towel/blanket burrito is invaluable. Perhaps someone COULD start the trend of restraining small children the same way. They usually like to be swaddled as infants, after all. I wore a leash when we camped as tiny girls (so that when my Mom turned around for a mere two seconds I didn’t go “swimming” in the lake or wander off completely – I used to get pretty far on my tricycle when we lived at Stanford and someone left the gate to the play yard open). I must say – I don’t think this is cruel, I think it can be a godsend. It wasn’t a substitute for watching me (or my sisters) it was a life-saving device. Shirleen occasionally leashed William and Sarah when they were young. She even made her own special and comfortable halter leashes – being the inventive animal lover she is. Any one who knows (or knew, especially) Sarah and William understand why this was IMPERATIVE in places like Disneyland. She also dressed them in matching and obnoxiously bright hand-crafted cow print outfits so they’d be easier to spot if they happened to escape from the teacups or something.

How did I get on leashes??? Anyway, I know what you are insinuating about the elephants, Hobie. I watch Animal Planet and The Learning Chanel – all those Discovery channels and more. And I used to read James Herriot books and watch the PBS show in which they were always sticking there arms in various bovine orifices clear up to the elbow every other page or so or every other scene.

Charles and Ashley and Paisley, the most BEAUTIFUL baby in the ENTIRE WORLD, are visiting from Kansas, where he’s doing his pre-vet studies. Since it is rather a redneck wonderland (I mean that in the nicest sense) he’s had the opportunity to neuter many, many, MANY huge bulls and brand cattle and all sorts of agriculturally-inspired things. WARNING: Some people might not have the stomach for the following information. Apparently, after you’ve castrated enough bulls the cattle owners take big ol’ buckets of testicles to local bars where they are used as “Nut Fries” and exchanged for free beers. Around here you might have heard of them as “Rocky Mountain Oysters.” They have the “Best of the Bull” – genuine “Prairie Oysters” – on the menu at Cowboy Grub in Salt Lake City. Just in case you have a hankering…

Ah, Kate. I never should have referenced anything involving elephants and “rectal” as that always gives me away. I think that we should go to Cowboy Grub, simply to remind me of the old days when I (men, don’t read this) castrated bulls with nothing but a dull pocket knife and (gulp) my teeth as part of my fantastic BYU education. Who knew such classes existed. This was about the same time I became a vegetarian, which lasted for over a year, until I vowed to eat every pig on this planet (by myself if I had to) following a very muddy swine vaccination experience.

And yes, birds eat pineapple, but not in the wild. Jenny-what kind of bird is your now infamous feather-picking Chico? Thanks for the neon-mouth warning. I shall supply myself with both Vitaballs AND Trident. Maybe I will switch to an all-gum diet.

Kate, I admit to having eaten Rocky Mountain Oysters. Where, you may ask? In Kansas, in the very town where Charles and Ashley live. At first I was doing it for the “ick” factor. But then I realized that they actually taste good; a bit like chicken gizzards. I had quite a few. Now I’m getting a hankering. . .

Could someone please explain to me why the comment threads on this site always seem to devolve into discussions of things like avian psychopharmacology, elephantine alimentary canals, and testicular appetizers?

Another vitamin option might be Viactiv. I haven’t tasted their vitamin chews, but I have tried their chocolate calcium chew — my daughter hates drinking milk, so we’ve resorted to giving her a Viactiv every morning with breakfast. They’re not half bad.

My wife and I are using the bad taste of liquid and chewable pain relievers and cold medicines to motivate our kids to learn to swallow pills…

I stumbled upon this site looking for some cheap Aerobid for my cat. I did some work for a vet named Ken. Small world. I will try the Vitaballs with Trident.

Does anyone know where to find some cheap Aerobid since I never found the reference on this site?

Thanks.

That was me above. Did you see how fast I leapt on that post?! We’re starved for posts, Grettir…*ahem*