I remember when I was a kid, my Dad got it into his head that my Brother and I should be taking cod liver oil pills Those things were like HORSE PILLS I could never get them down and I'd end up biting it and they tasted GROSS which totally turned me off of taking ANY pills for the longest time.

Here's some things that I've learned over the years:

(1) This one works the best for me: take a small mouthful of cold water and swallow it. Then take another mouthful of cold water, hold it in your mouth, pop the pill in there too and then swallow both the mouthful of water and the pill. Seems like the first mouthful sort of lubricates everything and the second mouthful washes it over the waterfall.

(2) When my Mom was in the hospital, she could NOT swallow pills. She was dehydrated. She was afraid. And she had never taken pills before. I made up a batch of boiled egg custard (a Southern recipe -- chilled egg custard made in a double boiler). The custard tasted good and lubricated things so that the pills would go down.

(3) NEVER-EVER not mention to someone that you are putting pills in their food. ALWAYS-ALWAYS tell them. They will not trust you otherwise.

(4) Another good way (for kids) is to put a small spoonful of chocolate ice cream syrup in a small dish or a small cup, put the pill in there (open if you can; unopened if you can't), then give her a spoonful of the chocolate syrup with the pill in it. Should go right down.

(5) The pharmacy has syrups that make medications taste better. You might ask the pharmacy if they can compound the medication into a liquid form that can be flavored with one of these flavorings.

Try to involve your daughter in taking care of her own health. Give her some choices. Tell her that friends have given you some suggestions for making pills easier to take. Mention some of them and ask her which one she wants to try. Maybe you could make up a list of all the different suggestions and get her to check off the ones that she DOESN'T like -- then let her choose from what's left. Sadly, when kids have a medical condition that makes them different from others kids, some kids try to not cooperate because, realistically, it's of the few things that she has control over. Giving her a choice about how she wants to do it gives her back some of that control.

Good luck. Hugs.

Barb