Oral medication - pills or liquid?

I've been told I'm forever banned from ibuprofen, though I can use tylenol after RNY. Can I tak it in pill form right after surgery, or should I buy liquid Tylenol (the kind my children use)? What about the two blood pressure meds I am taking; do I need to chew them or something awful? Thanks! Sheryl

I've been told to crush everything I take, but I honestly dont know if it's for the first month or what. I'm guessing it's for the first month. As for your blood pressure meds and anything else prescribed you're ever given, I'd say make SURE they know you're a gastric bypass patient and double check with your pharmacist on if your meds can be crushed or not. Some pills, extended release or enteric (coated so as to not hurt your stomach lining), cant ever be crushed, so make sure you find out for certain. As for the first month, I'd get the liquid- I cant imagine how nasty a crushed up Tylenol would taste!! Hope I helped! Rebecca

Yeah, I'm thinking the same thing; crushed up Tylenol will be icky. But I don't want to take narcotic pain meds any longer than necessary, so I guess I'll stock up on liquid Tylenol. My kids seem to think it's pretty tasty. I just peeked at your profile and it sounds like you are doing great! Congratulations. Sheryl

Sheryl, 1st of all thank you for the kind words you sent me as I recover. I have almost all my post-op meds in liquid form. I crushed my tylenol. Ask your discharge nurse or doctor for alot of your meds in liquid. I have for pain Oxycodone in liquid form (actually tastes not bad) and ibuprofen pill form, although I won't be using that alot anyway. I was discharged today with my list of about 5-7 different meds and 4 are liquids, 1 pill, 1 suppository. Like I said above, wait until you get your discharge instructions and then go buy all our meds. I had RNY. Best of Luck, Lisa J

I was discharged with a prescription for pepcid in pill form. They gave me one in the hospital in pill form too and I was afraid to take it, but it went down fine. I take 2 a day now. I also bought pill form tylenol, but I did see that walmart had a liquid form for adults now! Word of advice: Pills might go down easier than liquids at first (if they are small) because I can't even get my 1 oz liquid vitamin down anymore. I'm chewing on my kids vitamins instead until I can get in more liquid!

Sheryl, My doctor told me if I needed tylenol to cru**** because they make the kids stuff with a lot of sugar to make it taste good and some people can't handle the sugar so the childrens tylenol makes them dump. I'm figuring that whatever you need the tylenol for, dumping would probably make it worse. I'd check with your doctor and see what he/she says. Sheryl (the other one--of course we both have to spell our names the same to make it that much harder)

CHECK ALL YOUR MEDS TO MAKE SURE THEY CAN BE "CRUSHED OR CHEWED". IF NOT, YOUR DR WILL HAVE TO PRESCRIBE SOMETHING ELSE IF YOU CANNOT SWALLOW THEM WHOLE. THEY ARE USUALLY A TIME-RELEASED PILL. IF YOU CAN CRUSH MEDS, TRY IT WITH A LITTLE (VERY LITTLE) PUREED BABY FRUIT. YOUR POUCH SHOULD BE ABLE TO TOLERATE A SMALL AMOUNT OF NATURAL SUGARS IN REAL FRUIT (NO-SUGAR ADDED) & THE FLAVOR WILL MASK THE TASTE OF THE CRUSHED PILLS. GOD BLESS YOU, MS SHERYL DAWN & NICK

I am 21 days postop now and still crushing my pills. The Rx I have for Zantac, I am supposed to crush for a month. I think I have swallowed only one pill, but it frightens me. The baby fruit has not caused a problem for me. It takes me about a teaspoon of fruit mixed with the medicine to get it down and it hides the bad medicine taste. Actually I try to swallow it without it touching my tongue too much, but that might not be easy to do for you. Don't try using baby desserts, they are loaded with sugar. Just use the first fruits with no sugar - apples and pears and prunes are the ones I've been using. I have been afraid of the bananas, just because they seem so sweet. I have not dumped yet - thank God. Always check with your pharmacist to see if your pills can be crushed or your capsules to be opened. Some medicines are made to dissolve in your stomach and you may need a different med. Check every medicine you have to take -- it's important. Cheryl (Yes, another Cheryl - but I spell my name "correctly")

THANKS FOR THE INFO, MS C-H-E-R-Y-L (spelled correctly) ... IT'S REALLY STRANGE HOW MUCH WE HAVE TO CHANGE THINGS TO FIT OUR LITTLE POUCH. BUT, IT'S ALL "DOABLE" ... JUST A DIFFERENT WAY TO LIVE ... A HEALTHIER WAY! GOD BLESS YOU DAWN & NICK

I prefer the liquid tylenol, right now I do childrens because the ault liquid the 2nd ingredient is citric acid, and I've already dumped on that. Crushing pills is NASTY , been there done that. I take all my vitamins in chewable, but my blood pressure med and depression med (both as small as a pea) I have found I have to half them and take each half 30 minutes apart, as taking them whole they get hung in my throat (even tho they are small) So it takes 1 hour to take my HBP med. and I'm on 225mg effexor (3 75mg per day) and I've only gotten to 150 taken so far as it will take me 3 hours to take them all and I haven't ben home lately. It's a chore for me but I will get it down soon. Hugs, Melissa 241/221/??