Corey's Meds
A few people have asked me what meds Corey is currently taking, so I thought I'd take a minute and list them out, including basically what they do. First, he receives all his meds orally (through small syringes) four times a day: 8AM, 2PM-4PM, 8PM, and 10PM-12AM. Some times vary because some meds need to be taken on an empty stomach, and we feed Corey every 3 hours.Aldactone - 1.5 ml twice/day
This is a diuretic that helps Corey retain potassium (older people often eat a banana or drink orange juice to supplement their potassium when on a diuretic, but obviously Corey can't do that).
Digoxin - 0.4 ml twice/day
This helps his left ventricle pump harder/function better (eases the strain on his tiny heart).
Lasix - 0.4 ml three times/day
Another diuretic, but this one strips the body of potassium.
Captopril - 1.2 ml three times/day
This decreases the resistance in the body, lowers his blood pressure, and makes it easier for his heart to pump blood, thus making it easier for him to breathe (decreases the number of breaths he takes per minute).
Zantac - 0.6 ml four times/day
For reflux. He also gets rice cereal in his formula to help with the reflux, and prune juice to help with the resultant "back-up" from all the thick formula and lack of water.
Baby aspirin - 1/2 tablet, crushed and mixed with water, once/day
This thins his blood.
We usually draw his meds once a day and put them in plastic bags, labeled by time period. Luckily this med schedule won't last forever. He needs all this stuff now because he's still in heart failure and needs to grow into his shunt. Tomorrow we'll have another weight check, and hopefully it'll show that all the "yum yum" is working to pudge him up.