Cant swallow tablets

Torry_Quine

ariba10 wrote: »

Dissolved in a glass or dissolved in the stomach, not a lot of difference.

Not true, in fact this is very dangerous advice. Many tablets for instance have a coating which protects them from stomach acids and they then are broken down further on. other medication is designed to release it's contents slowly over the course of several hours.

ariba10

Are you all confusing tablets with capsules?

CupOfChai

No, we're not.

ali-t

Practice with smarties or other small sweets so you can get the mechanism going without the nasty taste and disintegrating tablet in your mouth.

GlasweJen

My consultant told me (and i was only about 8 at the time) that the best way to learn to swallow tablets was to think about what would happen if I didn't take them and then think about how bad it is to swallow them, then I need to be brave and just go for it and give myself a treat when it was over. Granted they were heart tablets/steroids and if I didn't take them I physically couldn't stand up.

mum2one

ariba10 wrote: »

Dissolved in a glass or dissolved in the stomach, not a lot of difference.

Sorry to disagree, but there is, it all depends on the mediciation as depending on the caseing is how far it goes down the body before being dissolved.

I don't know if it will work, but with my daughter, she hates tablets, and getting her malaria tabs down was a ngtmare, but she put it in a sweet, (chewit) worked for her.

Nicoll

A small mouthful of toast works for me, I feel that's not enough food to affect my pills I have to take on an empty stomach and I follow it up with a drink of water. I don't chew the pill just swallow it down quickly with the little bit of toast

Don't know if that's a good way to do it but it works for me I just can't swallow them with a drink.

beedeedee

Pretend they're peanuts! You usually chew these in half once, then swallow. Think about it, you swallow solid chunks...."This is a peanut, this is a peanut....."
I learnt to do this years ago and it means I don't have to faff around searching for water or whatever when taking tablets. Give it a go.
I know there will be all sorts of excuses - don't like peanuts etc, so if that's the case imagine they are something else - crispy bacon bits for example - but "peanuts" is the best.

princeofpounds

It is worth asking if a tablet can be broken down. Whilst it is not a good idea to do it without permission, it's pretty common for many medications to be broken down (for instance, I was once given a half-tablet of morphine rather than a full dose after breaking my wrist).

If you can, then great. DON'T crush them. This is a great opportunity to learn. Try them in quarters first. Then graduate to halves and so on. You will quickly appreciate that the only thing that makes them difficult to get down is the gag reflex, physically they fit just fine.

I think many of the other suggestions here are good too.

Toothsmith

ali-t wrote: »

Practice with smarties or other small sweets so you can get the mechanism going without the nasty taste and disintegrating tablet in your mouth.

Probably not the best advice a dentist could give, but I'd agree with this.

It is possible to swallow something about the size of a cotton reel, so even medium to large tablets shouldn't present any problem at all. It's all a mind thing.

If the only time you ever get to actually need to do it is on the rare occasions you need medicine, then the same "I can't do this" thoughts are going to trouble you, and, sure enough, you'll be quite correct, and you won't be able to do it.

Like anything, all it needs is practise.

M&Ms are pretty small tablet like sweets, or even Tic-Tacs which are even smaller.

Get a packet or three of something like that, and practise.

When you can do Tic-Tacs, move up to M&Ms. When you can do M&Ms, move up to Smarties, then Minstrels. Then try Torpedoes. When you get good at it, you'll be able to swallow whole things like wine gums, and once you can do that, then no tablet size or shape will ever worry you again.

Start small, and work up.