How many of you swallow pills whole?

My calcium, multi & vit. C are chewable.  D3, biotin, & benadryl are tiny.  Some herbal things I take are in capsules.. even if they should "hang" the gelatin capsule should dissolve fairly quickly and the rest go on down.  My glucosamine/chondrotin/msm is large..and I take it whole.  I may split it for a while after my next fill.

Everyone is different, you'll just have to see what works for you.

I do, even ones bigger than a aspirin. I've never had any problems. I make sure that there is food in my stomach if it's allowed with the pill to help it dissolve. If I am a little worried about the size, I take it with something hot, like tea or coffee. But of course listen to what your Dr recommends, good luck!

 whole
no problem
wendy

I pop 3 pills for my thyroid before breakfast, they're little and go down easy.  After breakfast, i pop a handful for various things.  Even though i get stuck with food when i forget to chew enough, pills have yet to give me a problem.  I do chewable vitamins and calcium, but swallow flax and fish oil capsules intact, and they're pretty large.

Thanks for all the replies!

I've always taken my pills whole, sometimes cut in half, but never crushed.  I used to take my pills several at a time with no problems, until just recently when a capsul got stuck and I had to have a partial unfill.  I've recently been refiled but I am still taking my pills whole or halved, but NOW only one at a time, with plenty of time between pills.
 

This is a very individual thing. I am not and never have been too tight; I can eat all foods, even the known "difficult" ones. But I cannot take even the smallest pill.

There are quite a few vets who share my experience. I could take any but the largest pills for the first year or so post-band. Then one morning, for no reason whatsoever I couldn't. I didnt' get particularly bad pain (I have never in 5 years had a really painful stuck episode which shows I am not too tight!); I could just "taste" waves of the pill coming back into my mouth. Not the pill itself, just the taste!

I then realised that it may have been that my pills were dissolving, unbeknownst to me, above the band.  For many pills, this doesn't matter. For some it can be very serious as that is a less acid environment than below the band and so pills that are harmless normally may cause long term damage. In the case of JeanM, it was dramatic short term corrosion and she ended up in ER. Her anti-bio cap caused such severe irritation her tissues swelled and the band area closed up.

It is for this reason, as well as the dangers of getting painfully stuck, that many docs recommend crushing, cutting pills.

But many seem to have no problems. Me, I make the choice not to take the risk!

Kate

Kate, Do you crush yours and take them in applesauce or what?

I have been fortunate in that i have been able to get liquid or soluble versions of almost everything. When i am faced with something that doesn't come that way, i just cru**** and bravely swallow it from a  spoon with drink to have to wa**** through!

Kate

For the first 9 months I couldn't take pills whole now I can one at a time with a ton of water between each.

Worst band experience ever was a stuck advil that broke down above my band and came back up. I will never in my life forget how badly it burned and tasted coming back up but that was like 3 months post-op and I had a major migraine and wasn't thinking.

No...lol the stuck advil didn't help the migraine but made it worse coming up. I believe that day I wished a train would derail and run me over in my bed. :)