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Question

Posted on: April 10 2017

Crystals in cough syrup Type Actifed

How is it that sometimes after a certain time crystals appear in the magistal Actifed syrup: 400mg codeine phosphate, 4g guaifenisin, 1.2 g pseudoephedrine, 0.8 mg triprolidineHcl, 0.6 g raspberries aroma and 0.45 g bromoformaroma and syrup up to 100 ml. 10 ml of water is used to dissolve medicines.

Answer

The presence of synthetic flavouring substances without known complicates the interpretation of the composition. TO be good one should divide the composition into various combinations. This is a great work.  

I find a syrup with following composition  :

Codeine phosphate 200 mg; tripolidineHCl 25 mg; pseudoephedrine HCl 600 mg; alcohol 4.3%   Based on a sorbitol syrup with other additives. But neither raspberries-nor bromoformaroma!

I would not use water because I suspect that all your medicines are soluble in sugar syrup. I would add alcohol and given your quantities are twice as large as the example I would add 10 ml of alcohol on 100 ml syrup.  

Another possibility is to add citric acid 100 mg