I have always had trouble swallowing pills, but in general I’ve gotten around it by either getting the liquid version of whatever medicine I’m taking, or just not getting sick. This time, it seems I’m going to need to take pills. Well, these suckers look pretty big, and I made some attempt to swallow one whole, but failed. I then just said screw it and chewed it up and washed it down with a lot of water. Is there any reason not to chew pills? I figure it’s all going to my stomach anyway, whether it gets there in a capsule or not, and when it does get there, if it’s in a capsule my stomach acids or going to destroy it pretty fast and it’ll be spread around. On the other hand, I figure if there’s no reason to swallow the pill whole, why would they make pills anyway? I can’t imagine that your average person would rather swallow something than chew it. Then again, maybe I’m unique in this aversion to swallowing pills whole.
Some meds are designed to be released into your body at a certain rate. For example, if you looked inside a capsule of “Contact” you would see all the different colored balls. Each color disolves at a different rate, so you get a more even flow of medication over the course of 4-6 hours.
A larger tablet MAY just be a way to give you a larger dose, if that is true, you can ask your doctor for smaller pills and you will just take 4 or 5 tiny ones instead of 1 huge one.
In short, without knowing what the drug is, I would suggest calling your doctor and asking.
CandyMan
I used to have trouble swallowing pills too, until I learned this trick. Place the pill near the back of your tongue. Take a deep breath and hold it. Sip some water, making sure that no air passes into or out of the mouth or nose while you’re sipping (a drinking straw may make it easier). Swallow. Wash it down with a full glass of water.
Pills can also be made up of something that is harmful to your teeth but not harmful to the inside of your stomach. IIRC, aspirin in one such pill. It’s acidic qualities can mess your teeth up if you chew aspirin regularly. However, you’d have to take a lot of aspirin to disrupt the highly acidic environment in your stomach.
Also, some pills taste pretty bad. (Aspirin again)
Yup. The rate of dissolution in the stomach will be very different for a whole pill as opposed to a chewed one. This may or may not be important. Ask your doctor.
Ever tasted aspirin after it’s been chewed? (or just broken apart) Yeeckkk! That’s enough to make you puke right there!
I don’t think aspirin is harmful for your teeth (no more than orange juice or coca cola or other mild(ish) acids anyway) - but it is definitely bad for your stomach. It can cause ulcers, so you probably shouldn’t chew it so that it gets less dispersal in your stomach and moves on undamaged to where it actually gets absorbed. Same with a lot of pillsthat are “enteric coated” - they have a coating on to protect them from your stomach acids & only break down further in to do less damage to your system…capsule tablets probably effectively work like that
I think I remember reading something by Stephen King in which a dentist warns his patient about chewing aspirin. I don’t remember if it was something that actually happened to King or a scene from one of his novels. Even if it were the latter, I suspect it was based on something that really happened. I stopped chewing aspirin after I read it.
I remember the guy that chewed aspirin all the time - wasn’t it “The Shining”? I don’t have a copy handy so I can’t check. Aspirin always did a number on my stomach, I can’t imagine it’s good for your teeth.
I think you’d want to check with your doctor as they said - time-release pills obviously you can’t chew, but maybe you can others. As a kid I always had to smush up Tylenol in a spoon of jam and then ate it, even though that still tasted nasty. Now I can swallow handfuls of pills at a time.
You might want to practice swallowing little slippery things like M&M’s and work up to real pills. Oh, I know, you could try those little mini-M&M’s. One M&M, lots of water, eventually you’ll have the pill-swallowing ability of Liza Minnelli circa 1982.