I’ve never had much of a problem with it before, but I’m on these giant horse pill antibiotics for this horrible sinus infection I’ve got going on (that doesn’t seem to be getting any better) and this morning a pill stuck in my throat and I choked and threw up - what a great addition when you’re already sick as a dog, right? - and now my body is very… suspicious of them. I didn’t even try to take a replacement this morning because I knew my throat would probably freak out and we would not have a happy time.
So what do people who don’t take pills well do, particularly with those big rough awful ones? I normally just stick the thing on my tongue, small side towards the throat end, and swill it down with a bunch of water if it’s an inconvenient pill. Are there tricks?
I’m good at pills, but I understand how you can get kind of gun-shy about the big ones. The best advice I have is to take a few swallows of water first, make sure your mouth isn’t dry and then try.
Check with the pharmacy. They may have a liquid version. Does it taste like shit? Sure. But it goes down and then you can chase it with something like tomato juice or orange-pineapple.
I used to gag on the teeeeeeniest pills. I seem to be getting much better at it these days. Go figure.
I need to call the pharmacy anyway, because 1) obviously I’m missing a pill now, and 2) some of the pills were broken in the bottle, I’m finding out. (They’re scored, so I assume they CAN be cut, but I want to ask anyway.) Also, I don’t know if it’s the antibiotics or the sickness or the postnasal drip or the fact I’ve hardly eaten since last Friday, but I’ve been incredibly nauseated and if there’s another option I sure would like to have it.
Today I ate something with gusto for the first time in a week - had a big fat salty kosher pickle. God, it tasted good. I tried eating another one and wanted to hurl again, though.
Can you try to practice with something you think of as food, rather than medicine? Maybe you could try swallowing some candies that are similarly sized, and see if you can train your gag reflex that way.
I couldn’t swallow even the tiniest pills until I was fourteen, and I remember being standing in tears over the sink, trying to swallow a small pill that my body kept rejecting. I gradually taught myself, starting with incredibly small pills and working my way up.
I used to be a bit gun-shy myself. What worked for me was chugging a glass of water. Popping the pill into my mouth than immediately chugging a second glass. The first glass lubricated my throat and kinda opened it up, the second chased the pill, and if I did it fast enough the taste wouldn’t hit my tongue and my throat wouldn’t close up as an automatic response (like we’re talkin fingers holding the pill just in front of the glass on it’s way to my mouth so that the second the pill hit my tongue it was whooshed down my throat in a torrent of water
I’ve found that sometimes a carbonated beverage can help - stick pill on back of tongue, take a swig of Coke or what have you, and rather than tilt your head backwards, tilt forwards. The fizzing action can help move the pill along.
And if that doesn’t work, I second seeing if there’s a liquid (I’d imagine that most antibiotics come in multiple forms). Tastes awful, but so does trying to choke down a pill and failing.
Another option: crush that sucker into powder, and sprinkle it on a spoonful of flavored yogurt/applesauce/pudding/other semi-liquid food. You’ll taste it, so have another spoonful at the ready, but unless you have an extremely strong sensitivity to the foul taste, it’ll go down.
I have to take a fairly large pill twice a day, and the method I’ve found that helps me the most is to get a mouthful of whatever you’re drinking with the pill first and then pop the pill in your mouth, and swallow it. This method can be slightly messy if you miscalculate how much liquid to get in your mouth before the pill, though.
I take pills well but sometimes I get gun shy when I’m congested. My technique is to take it with water with my head back slightly and then I draw the tip of my tongue along the roof of my mouth. This motion creates the most room at the back of my throat. It’s done in one smooth motion as if the tilting of my head is linked to the movement of my tongue.
I was really sick once and had to take huge pills that tasted horrible! I tried cutting them, crushing them, everything, but I couldn’t get over the taste. Called the pharmacist after a couple of unsuccessful tries and found out they had a smaller, coated version :eek:.
I’d see about getting a different antibiotic that won’t cause you all those problems.
I used to be bad at swallowing pills, too, but have trained myself to do it. My preferred method is to take a sip of orange juice, put the pill in my mouth and swallow with more orange juice. If I can taste the pill, I sometimes gag and OJ hides the taste.
I swallow a mouthful of water first, then put the pill in my mouth and mimic chewing before washing it down with a second mouthful of water. Brain’s not used to swallowing without chewing first.
I learned this trick by necessity when taking little dense pills that were like fishing weights—whenever I leaned forward to sip the water, the pill would fall to the front of my mouth in suboptimal swallowing position. I eventually started filling up, tilting back, and then dropping the pill in and swallowing in one swift motion.
Yup, this works the best. It prevents the pill from sticking - personally I like to rattle my head side to side a little and get the thing moving before gulping it down.
The neat thing is you can do this trick with capsules, except by tilting your head forwards they’ll float to the bath of your throat.