Problems swallowing pills?

[Ana Bellini]

Anyone here has the same problem? What do you do?

This is me: I always hated pills. When I was a child I always choose liquid meds, but of course, I grew. I was around 12 when there was a situation where there was no liquid meds, only a pill. I cried because I didn't want to take it. It was tiny, half a centimeter. I ended up mastigating it.

Then I started to mastigate everything, no matter how awful it tasted. Sometimes I tried to swallow, but it always ended up stuck in my throat and either coming down slowly and painfully or coming back to my mouth, giving me the sensation of vomit.

It changed this year, when I started taking Risperdal. It's brown, so I imagined it tasted bad. It's also tiny, but I did swallow it. Then I started swallowing Zoloft. In December I started taking vitamins, and that one isn't so small, around two centimeters, and I have to cut it to take it.

So, I just want to know if I'm alone on this.

[gumdropper1]

No, never had a problem. Just down the hatch. Pills are tiny things, much smaller than most of what you swallow. Practice with raisins if you must. Doug

[emet-ana]

I find pills quite easy usually and can swallow 7 at a time with a glass of water/something.

Once or twice I had to swallow very large pills without water and kept gagging and regurgitating but I kept imagining that it was bread or food and then swallowed them eventually!

[AoD]

Never had a problem, although I did gag a few times on pills that I tried to swallow with too little or no water but it sorted itself out pretty quickly.

[Amanda Pomerenke]

Wow, I thought I was the only one! No, you aren't alone. I can't even swallow tiny little pain relievers. I try to wrap it up in a small piece of bread but i still can't. And I might go on anti depressants or anti anxiety meds soon :// I'm really worried I wont be able to take them!

[Cynna]

You can tell Doug has never had to swallow a prenatal vitamin. Those are huge.

Make sure you check with the pharmacy before crushing any pills. Some cannot be crushed.

[emet-ana]

Amanda- you could ask for a liquid suspension of anti-depressants- I have fluoxetine (prozac) in liquid form (prozit) in the past.

[Amanda Pomerenke]

Wow, I didn't know there were liquid forms of that Thanks for the heads up!

[Skittles04]

i take 7 tablets in the morning, one being this massive vitamin pill- i scoff them all at once.

takes a while to get used to it, but see if you can get hold of a pill cutter, and start swalling half of a tablet. put it at the back of you tongue and take a mouthful of water. the size of a tablet is a hell of a lot smaller than food you would swallow

[Grace47]

I've only had a problem when the pills are really large, but I know what you mean. My fear is choking on them, so I take them with lots of water.

[chica2012]

I am 24 years old and for the life of me I CANNOT swallow a pill! Not even a tic tac of my BC pill

[Ana Bellini]

Amanda, Dina, I'm glad I'm not the only one.

What do you mean SEVEN pills at once? That's impossible! I'd choke to death!

[AoD]

Yes, it's important to check as some pills are not meant to be crushed or cut. There was a trick my old pharmacist had (worked at the lab for a while) to make kids swallow pills (a mom was having trouble giving meds to her son), basically he said to make them put the pill in their mouth and make them drink from one of those glass Coca-cola bottles (or something similar in size) and to chug water from that and they'd swallow the pill at the same time without thinking about it. Otherwise... the only other trick I have is one I learned from the vet: coat the pill in margarine and just "throw" it down the throat. Works with both kids and cats. Except you have to watch the cat after to make sure he doesn't spit it out on the carpet. But usually, when I need to take larger pills I just put them in my mouth, take a mouthful of water, swish the water and pill around in my mouth a bit to "place" it, throw my head back and swallow. That allows the pill to flow better with the water instead of trying to stick to some part of the mouth, and by putting my head back it makes the throat straighter so there's less gag reflex.

[wanted]

i have this problem too! I think it's cause of my phobia. I don' like to take any pills,even to small ones. The other day i had a tooth pain and i went to my dentis and she said i have inflammation,my throat was in pain too so she gave me antibiotics,very,very big. I have always been avoiding those. When i cut it,they are still big so i refused to take them. My mother was mad at my cause it can get worse without antibiotics. I was waiting for 2 days to see if i'm getting better,i took some,i don't know how ynu say it,but it's a plant and it's for that. I'm proud to say i don't have any pain now,and a few days earlier i couldn't opet my mouth properly cause óf the pain. I'm alsf happy cause i read those antibiotics that contain penicilin has side effects like v and d very often. It's rare and dangerous someone gets through inflammation without antibiotibs. And i took a risk,just cause of my phobia.

[jennjt]

I swallow all of mine at once, too :/ Meaning, daily anti-depessant, 2 different vitamins, work out supplement, probiotic, birth control, and Nexium... Like AoD said, there's a "technique" lol-- I kind of throw my head back and swallow-- key is to get them down the throat and not stuck on back of the tongue.

I wanted to second what others have said about crushing the pills-- I am currently on Pristiq, and the coating is a time-release deal... so if you cut them, "dose-dumping" can happen, and from what I hear is pretty unpleasant.