Trouble swallowing capsules

I'm about two months post-op and it has been smooth sailing. The one struggle I am having right now is swallowing capsules, which is a problem since many of the vitamins are in capsule form. I seem fine with tablets and caplets, its just the capsules. They get stuck even when I take them with a fair bit of water (as much as I can drink at once, which is two large sips).

Has anyone had this problem, and if so do you have any tips?

Thanks!
Jenny

I have issues swallowing gritty tablets. I seem to drink the water and not the tablet more often than not despite the size of gulp. I find they go down a lot easier with some food.

 Take a mouth full of water and tilt head back

Drop pills in mouth and swallow everything all at once - you won't feel a thing,.

This gets easier as you go along.  At first, I could only do one horse pill at a time, but today I can do handuls of pills.  I even taught this to my son at the age of 3 and never had to chase him around the house with a spoon again,.

 Do the throw your head back thing for pills because they sink, but put your chin to your chest with capsules because they float. With a mouth full of water and a capsule when your chin goes to your chest the capsule floats to the back of your throat and should go down pretty easily.

I agree with preachermomma; for capsules, tilt you head down so that the capsule will "float up" to your throat.  With capsules, if i tilt my head back, they float up to the back of my teeth. 

Also, I take some capsules apart and sprinkle the contents on my tounge and do the head back routine.  Some don't have much of a taste so it's not a problem.  As for my Prozac, that is absolutely the worst tasting pill.  I get that in a liquid form.  Not very tasty, but better than the capsule contents.  There are other things that come in liquids.  I have also put the contents in yogurt unless, of course, it's something that needs to be taken on an empty stomach.

Try them with food.  I used to take the offending pills with greek yogurt, at Vitalady's suggestion.  At first I had to push them to the back of my throat inside the yogurt, because my gag reflex would not let me swallow them in front.

Also, twirl them around with the liquid to separate the capsules (if you're trying to swallow more than one).  They tend to bunch together, and when they do that, the gelatin they are made of wants to glue them to each other. 

Another thing Michelle (Vitalady) told me was that gelatin capules will dissolve right in your mouth.  Which is valuable if you sit there, like I did, and are unable to swallow a mouthful of greek yogurt with capsules inside it.  Sooner or later, they dissolve and get mushy.  Depending on the contents, the taste can be bad.  But once they dissolve, there are technically no more pills to swallow, just mush.  Problem solved.

Capsules float.  Tablets sink.  Try swallowing capsules while bending over at the waist, so your capsules float to the very back of your throat.  It's really difficult to swallow with your chin on your chest, is why I say this. 

Another way is to deactivate your gag reflex.  Put a small pinch of salt on the very back of your tongue, dry.  Then take your pills.  Learned this in the dental office with patients who gagged on x-ray bitewings.  Don't know how or why it works, it just does.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I am going to experiement with these suggestions to see what works best.

I knew you guys would know what to do!