THE WHIZDOCTOR

Why are these useful? Over the counter medications are needed frequently for conditions like fever, pain and allergic reactions. However, the doses provided on the packages are given as average doses for an age range (for example 5 ml of drug A for children aged 2 to 5 years). Unfortunately, this can lead to some kids getting too little of the drug (not an effective dose), while some others get too much of it (toxic, poisonous, unsafe dose). This is because kids of the same age come in a wide variety of sizes. Worse yet, kids of different ages in these statistical dose ranges come in even larger different weights. For example, a typical 5-year old american boy in the 90th percentile (Child A) weighs ~ 22kg, in the 10th percentile (Child B) weighs ~ 16 kg, while a typical 2 year old American boy in the 3rd percentile only weighs 10 kg. If a drug is dosed on a package at a specified volume (5 ml for instance) for a 2 - 5 year range, all 3 of these boys in the above example would get the same dose of the drug using the package’s average statistical based dosing. However, such a dose likely would not be enough for child A, and most likely toxic or poisonous for child C. Using weight based dosing for the given drug (milliliters or milligrams per kg of the child’s weight) would ensure each child gets the dose that is adequate and effective, yet safe for their given exact weights respectively. These apps use these weight based formulae to calculate these effective and safe doses for children.