Sue, one more note on mixing carafate.  A trick I picked up here or
somewhere else ferrety was to *not* crush the tablet and then mix with
water - it doesn't want to blend well if crushed first.  Instead, drop the
entire 1 g tablet into a small bottle and add the desired amount of water.
So if you want to give approx 1/14th of the tablet, draw up 14 cc's of
water in a syringe and then squirt that into the bottle, let it sit for
a few seconds, and then shake it.  It'll suspend pretty well, but it does
settle out.  When you want to use it, shake it up and then
quick-like-a-weasel draw up 1 cc of the stuff to give the patient.  Or you
could add 7 cc's of water and give the weasel 0.5 cc, you get the idea.  I
refrigerate the suspension, no idea if this is necessary.
 
Incidentally, empty bottles from the iron supplement called "Ferret Drops"
works great for this as they are dark brown glass and have nice lids you
can use instead of the dropper.  Another hint: don't administer this
suspension in your work clothes.  They don't mind it *too* much, but there
might be a bit of head-shaking and minor splatter, and it will leave bright
white chalky spots on anything it touches. :-)
 
-Pam S., carafate fan.
[Posted in FML issue 3266]