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Trouble taking medicine?


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This isnt anything serious im gonna warn that now, and if mods want me to take this down i will with no problem, just curious if im the only one or not, so i was recently in the hospital last night in extreme pain in my abdomen, after hours of tests, altra sounds and other things, i found out i had liquid in me from a burst ovarian cyst

long story short, they gave me these giant pills, now im only 19, and was always scared of pills for fear of choking as a kid growing up, but got used to taking some small ones if i really needed to if i was sick, but these are huge, and i always end up choking on it for a sec or not being able to get it down 

does anyone else have this problem when taking medicine? Am i the only one? 

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Contact the pharmacy or doctor who prescribed it and ask if it can be cut--some pills can be safely cut in half, thirds, etc. which will be easier to swallow.  Alternatively, if there's something like a 24-hour medical help line in your area, call them.  We have a 24/7 nurse line here that's free to call.

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5 hours ago, Jeffery Mewtamer said:

If it's a solid pill, I second the suggestion of inquiring about cutting and add asking about crushing or dissolving in water, and if the pill is scored, cutting it that much is probably safe. The reason you should ask a doctor or pharmacist before proceeding is that cutting or crushing increases the surface area and thus how quickly the pill is digested, which can alter absorption rates or even how much of the active ingredient survives long enough to enter the bloodstream.

 

If it's a capsule, inquire about breaking open the capsule and consuming the contents(usually a powder or liquid). The casing of capsules is usually inert, but sometimes ensures the contents makes it far enough through the digestive tract without being broken down prematurely or prevents the medicine from reacting with the external environment.

 

Also, less important than potentially altering the efficacy of the medicine, because of the increased surface area(for cutting/crushing pills) or exposing what is usually sealed(for cracking capsules), you may find yourself trading hard to swallow for leaves a bad taste in your mouth(sometimes, the capsule just serves to make foul tasting medicine easier to take, and even a literal bitter pill might be coated solely to mask the taste).

They are both solid pills, one doesnt have a coating but i wanna say in a way it does, i broke them in half anyway and just took them fast after reading this, one dissolves instantly when wet and it tastes like stomach bile so i now put peanut butter in my mouth before breaking it in half and taking it, idk if i can break these up, i did it anyway, probably stupid but my body has a high gag reflex, plus i tried taking it last night and it got lodged in my throat and i was choking, its a pain in the ass

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9 hours ago, Kirito said:

I used to struggle with this.

The best thing to do is to take the band-aid approach.

Throw the pill in, take a big swig of water, and swallow hard.

Apprehension will just make your muscles tighten up and make it harder to swallow.

Just try not to think about it.

I do try that, thing in once it doesn’t go down and starts dissolving thats what i try to do and force it down but then i end up choking, if i had something to drink other than water like some fruity drink or something I probably could do it easier because of the horrible taste, sadly all i got is water and milk, and i cant drink milk with the pills. I do the “put it in the back of your tongue” trick, but recently doing it with peanut butter helps a ton for me

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I always had problems swallowing pills the traditional way, until one day I tried it backwards. I get a swig of water/tea/juice in my mouth first, and then slip the pill in through my lips as I tilt my head back, swallowing as it sinks to the back of my mouth.

Doing it this way means I barely feel the pill in my mouth, and the act of swallowing it with the liquid already in my mouth seems to propel it down my throat better. I liken it to putting a pill in a sink and then dumping water over it to wash it down, vs filling the sink and dropping the pill into the water, then unstopping the sink. You're fighting a lot more static friction in the former, whereas the pill is just "going with the flow" in the latter. Do note though, this doesn't work well for powder/air-filled capsules, as they float in a mouthful of liquid, but liquid/gel-filled capsules are fine.

No idea if this would work for anyone else, but I figure it's unorthodox enough to be worth sharing.

Edited by HPattern (see edit history)
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I have previously found pills so hard to swallow and people would make it sound like it was as easy as operating as door. It seems that some people take pills and capsules so easily while people like you or me just don't!

I still struggle to a degree these days, but it seems the correct tactical positioning on the middle of the tongue coupled with a moderate (not large) quantity of standard drink as well as a slightly tilted back head (not too extreme) can combine to make it just about manageable in just one try. It says a lot that I need special techniques just to take a stupid little pill!

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  • 2 weeks later...
Guest dontwanna

I straight up used to have the same issue when I was younger, but I gradually got better about it. I think a lot of it is psychological, mostly a gag reflex thing. The throat is weirdly malleable, though. I can take multiple massive horse pills at once nowadays. Just try not to think about it.

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Not quite the same but I don’t like taking medicine only because I feel like it doesn’t really work for me. I’ve been popping pills for my issues since I was in grade school and after awhile they just stopped working and I was back at square one. So I hate taking pills because I think they’re stupid. 

But giant horse pills usually aren’t too bad for me.  My least favorite pills are the chalky ones that disintegrate on your tongue and are all bitter. Yuck. 

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18 hours ago, PWG said:

Not quite the same but I don’t like taking medicine only because I feel like it doesn’t really work for me. I’ve been popping pills for my issues since I was in grade school and after awhile they just stopped working and I was back at square one. So I hate taking pills because I think they’re stupid. 

But giant horse pills usually aren’t too bad for me.  My least favorite pills are the chalky ones that disintegrate on your tongue and are all bitter. Yuck. 

that's what i had to take recently, except it tasted like bile and was gross.

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