# Foulest tasting medicine **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 21, 2010, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881 "2010-01-21T19:02:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Yumblie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/76d3ee/32.png) [@Yumblie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yumblie)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/1 "2010-01-21T19:02:49Z")
I took some castor oil last night, and was unprepared for the assault my taste buds were in for. My god, that stuff is awful! I had to suppress my gag reflex multiple times. It was like drinking rancid butter. ---
**Author:** ![badbadrubberpiggy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/57b2e6/32.png) [@badbadrubberpiggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/badbadrubberpiggy)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/2 "2010-01-21T19:03:45Z")
Yeah, it’s terrible stuff. For me, it wasn’t even the taste, it was just so goopy & slimy. I expected it to be more like drinking a bit of vegetable oil, but it was so much worse. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/3 "2010-01-21T19:10:04Z")
Aspirin. Try chewing on one of those babies. ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/4 "2010-01-21T19:13:30Z")
I remember cod liver oil tasting foul. I think I only ever had it once though. On the flipside, when I broke my foot (as a kid) I was given some syrupy stuff in hospital that stuck in my memory for just how lovely it tasted. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/5 "2010-01-21T19:13:49Z")
My dental hygienist had me rinsing with chlorhexidine for ten days for infected gums (fat lot of good all my brushing and flossing does, apparently) - worst taste EVER. It almost made me gag a couple of times, and I don’t gag. And the taste _lingered_ - not only lingered, but made my taste buds less sensitive. Awful, awful stuff. ---
**Author:** ![EmAnJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@EmAnJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmAnJ)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/6 "2010-01-21T20:06:10Z")
Buckley’s. It’s a Canadian cough medicine made with natural-ish ingredients. You just need to watch the [commercials](http://www.buckleys.com/about/tv.htm) to know how awful it is. I use it all the time and I make sure I don’t take it on an empty stomach or I’ll be in pain. It makes my eyes water and I always gag. It seems to work, however. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/7 "2010-01-21T20:22:51Z")
When I was a kid I got pneumonia. I had to take two medicines for it, both in liquid form. One was a horrible tasting thing that tasted like – get this – medicine. Yuck! The other was flavored like a strawberry milkshake. At the end of two weeks, I grew rather fond of the mediciny tasting stuff. But to this day I can’t stand strawberry milkshakes. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/8 "2010-01-21T20:40:37Z")
Last summer, MilliCal had a sudden and sharp pain in her side that wouldn’t go away. We were all thinking “appendicitis” as we took her to the hospital emergency room. In order to perform the definitive test using the CAT scan, they had to have her drink four big cups of some sensitizing agent. It was mixed with some flavoring, but apparently it didn’t cover up the taste, merely altering it. even in the face of emergency room necessity, it took MilliCal a truly major effort to eventually chug down the bare minimum of that stuff. OIn fact, it took a major effort to get her to get _any_ of it down. She was fine, by the way. With her having had to swallow all that awful-tasting stuff, you perversely found yourself wishing that maybe she’d actually _have_ appendicitis, so as not to waste all that effort. ---
**Author:** ![Rushgeekgirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rushgeekgirl/32/3715_2.png) [@Rushgeekgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rushgeekgirl)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/9 "2010-01-21T21:07:09Z")
Turpen hydrate. I took it as a child for some sort of horrible virus. I will never forget how awful it was, both swallowing it and having it come back up again soon after. ---
**Author:** ![GilaB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8e7dd6/32.png) [@GilaB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GilaB)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/10 "2010-01-21T21:09:26Z")
At some point when we were kids, my brother and I were both prescribed some truly horrible medicine that tasted like rotten bananas, with a strong medicinal overtaste. (I have no idea what it was.) My mother got annoyed by our whining about it until she tasted a dab of it herself, but she then apologized to us. We still had to take the rest of the stuff, though. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/11 "2010-01-21T21:10:19Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > She was fine, by the way. What was wrong with her? ---
**Author:** ![badbadrubberpiggy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/57b2e6/32.png) [@badbadrubberpiggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/badbadrubberpiggy)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/12 "2010-01-21T21:12:25Z")
My cats recently had to take an antibiotic. For some mysterious reason, it’s cherry-flavored. While cherry-flavored is OK for humans and rodents, why cats? They probably thought it was as foul as anything they’d ever had to eat before. Why not meat-flavored? ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/13 "2010-01-21T21:13:22Z")
> [@GilaB](#): > > My mother got annoyed by our whining about it until she tasted a dab of it herself, but she then apologized to us. When a friend was a kid, she was sick and her mother told her to drink some apple juice. “But mom, it tastes funny.” They quarrelled about it for some time, and finally the mother proved that it tasted perfectly fine. She chugged the entire cup. It was apple cider vinegar. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/14 "2010-01-21T21:13:55Z")
Tincture of Opium is really foul but can be worth it ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/15 "2010-01-21T21:30:19Z")
I have two big bottles of “banana flavored barium” that I have to chug tomorrow AM. I am _so_ not looking forward to this! ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/16 "2010-01-21T21:37:49Z")
When I was a wee child, my mother had a sovereign remedy for coughs. I have no idea what the name of the stuff was, but she swore by it, and I had to take it if I started coughing. We called it “telephone pole”. Apparently, it had creosote or something similar in it, because it smelled and tasted like licking a phone pole in the middle of summer. And yes, I did. Once. ---
**Author:** ![TimeWinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/17 "2010-01-21T22:19:10Z")
For reasons not relevant to this thread, I cannot swallow pills. I therefore end up chewing an awful lot of things that most people just swallow. From this expert position, I claim: antibiotics. Aspirin is bad, but not even in the same league. On the plus side: Ibuprofin makes your tongue go numbish. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/18 "2010-01-21T22:37:08Z")
There was some nasty stuff that one had to take to kill off one of the nasties in Africa from ingesting unfiltered water. It left a gunmetal taste in your mouth and from anything you ate. ---
**Author:** ![freckafree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/freckafree/32/3050_2.png) [@freckafree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/freckafree)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/19 "2010-01-21T22:39:42Z")
> [@Rushgeekgirl](#): > > Turpen hydrate. I took it as a child for some sort of horrible virus. I will never forget how awful it was, both swallowing it and having it come back up again soon after. I came in here to post that very thing – Elixer of [Terpin Hydrate](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terpin_hydrate). Nasty stuff. **Clothahump** , I think this is your “telephone pole” medicine. It was derived from turpentine. ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881/20 "2010-01-21T22:54:42Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > I have two big bottles of “banana flavored barium” that I have to chug tomorrow AM. I am _so_ not looking forward to this! Upper GI’s aren’t that bad. Far better than a Lower GI IMHO. ETA: My vote is for prednisone. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foulest-tasting-medicine/525881.md?page=2)