Coated Caplets?

My wife was shopping today at our local Meijer store and found Calcium Citrate on a buy one get one free sale so she picked up a couple of bottles. I noticed that they are "coated caplets" My question is will these desolve in our switched systems?  Also they look kind of large, I know that I was told no pills larger than an asprin and while these are caplets not pills (they do go down easier) they are big.

So what do you vets take for calcium? What dose per pill and what form.........and of course where do you by them?

Most all calcium tablets are large and I've had problems swallowing them for years. The dosage is 500mg per dose and I current use Upcal powder that I get from Amazon. Vitalady also has a calcium capsule.

I can't address the coating issue.

No comment on coating but like Gail said, all of the calcium I've seen are large. Right now I'm taking BA's chewable cinnamon tabs (which are humungous) and are 500mg's. I have Vitaladys also and her's are 300mg (I believe, I'm not home right now to look at the bottle) and you take 2 at a time and they are a large blue pill. I've seen other caps and the second I find a small one that we can take I'm buying stock in them lol

Oh and you asked what form.  We want our Vitamins dry.  They need to be able to disolve in water so no oil and such.

Calcium is not a vitamin.  In particular, calcium is not a FAT SOLUBLE vitamin.  The issue of the dry form of vitamins applies only to vitamins D, A and K (I suppose E too, but I don't take any).

I love you DC.  I swear no matter how much I read or lurk on these forums the more I learn.  Sometimes I find the little things I've read over or stored in a different part of my brain.  :)

Calcium citrate is a BULKY form of calcium - only 1/5 by weight of the material is elemental calcium.  Look CAREFULLY at the bottle - I will bet you anything that if you look carefully, you will see that in order to get one SERVING (which, depending on the brand and type, will be 400, 500, or 630 mg of ELEMENTAL calcium), you need to take TWO PILLS (or caplets) AT A TIME.

I take Citrical Maximum - 630 mg calcium per serving, i.e., per TWO pills.  I take a total of 4 pills a day, so 1260 mg elemental calcium.

They should dissolve easily in your stomach - the coating is to make them slide down your throat more easily.

Who said you shouldn't take anything bigger than an aspirin?  For how long?  By 3 months, I was swallowing several big pills at a time.

I went to a DS specific pre-op and nutrition class a week ago and was bombarded with info. I was sent home with a notebook of info that we went through in class. One of the things talked about was medications and we were told to take nothing larger than an aspirin, I am only guessing that this includes the vitamins. They wanted us to talk to our PCP or pharmacist to see what meds can be crushed or cut in half if needed. I was never told for how long we had to do this but I know some of the vitamins are quite large so I assume it is just until the suture line heals. Diane Davis was in the same class and we both have Dr. Inman as our surgeon. Diane's surgery is tomorrow!!

Thanks for helping out, that's good news about the coated caps being OK!

Diana, do you have relay good absorption?   Like a long common channel or something...  I have noticed that you seem to take way less stuff than I do.  Lucky you.   Just curious....

100 cm common channel - a standard Rabkin DS.  I eat a lot of meat.  1260 mg of calcium, good amount of vitamin D (50K IU/day, Vitalady) and K (1K of Vitalady's brand).  I don't do anything special beyond that.  My PTH is good as well.  I don't drink cola.  I do what my labs say I need to do, not what might be overkill.

You can disolve the calcium pill on a soup spoon with water.  Takes 5 minutes or so.  Should be kind of a bland taste.  Can mix in applesauce or something...