Taking larger pills....help :-( and also a question about herbal laxatives.

I am 5.5 months out and I'm still crushing pills or doing chewables. I have broke Tylenol in half and taken them and haven't had a problem. 

My fear is with the new calcium I have bought. They are larger....pretty much a horse pill. I am scared they will get stuck. I couldn't find anything smaller in the citrate,  only the carbonate. I tried the liquid when I first had my surgery and it hurt my pouch, so that is out. 

Also they are only 300mg so I have to take 5 a day :-/ 

Do you think that at this far out I'll be okay trying them whole? 

Next question....

I bought the Swiss Formula herbal laxative as I thought it would be the same as the senokot. The senna laxative I was using has 8.6mg oh sennosides (senna lead and fruit) the Swiss formula has senna (leaves powder) 240 mg,  cascara Sagrada 50 mg,  rhubarb (root powder) 8 mg,  and gentian (root powder) 8 mg. I am almost scared to take them lol....has anyone used these before? I would take 3 senokot at once....I am not even sure how many of these to take. I don't want to die on the toilet lol. 

Suggestions for both very appreciated. 

Kim

Xo

I love the wellesse calcium it's liquid but it is so good.... If you can get to the USA they sell the small but powerful tablets I think called petite and they are the citrate SAMs club or wall greens

Thank you for the response! 

Is the.Wellese the grape flavoured? I took that in the beginning and it hurt my pouch so much. I went to the.chewables by Jamieson.  They are the carbonate though. 

I got my mom.to pick me.up some.from sams a couple weeks back when she was there but unfortunately they are the carbonate as well.  I got the b12 from there too. Do you take these? I break them in half and take them every 3 days.  They are like 2500 mcg each.

Kim

Yes I do two b12 a week from SAMs :) and the wellesse is orange flavour I gave away three bottles of the small citrate calcium pills as I m addicted to the wellesse I buy mine at the super store but I've heard others that buy it from Costco.  I could not find the wellesse at SAMs club.  I also do the red krill from SAMs no after taste and I've heard its good for your hair.... Mine has not begun to grow back so I have doubled up on b12 and back to two shakes per day trying to up my protein intake

I'm using Lifetime lemon flavoured liquid calcium citrate and it works for my new pouch.  You can get it at Loblaws in the health food section not pharmacy.

I didn't like the taste of the wellesse  ....but well tolerate the Life brand blueberry flavor liquid calcium.....

You should be able to swallow the pills at this point. Never tried the laxative. Try a couple and see if they help

I too have difficulty swallowing pills.  Try Unjury.com - Multi with B12 means only 1 pill a day chewable, and they have calcium citrate with Vit D  4 chewable pills a day.  Good quality pills too. 

Good luck.

Kelly

I'm 5 months out and got tired of splitting my pills, so thought I would try swallowing it whole. Happy to say, I have had zero issues with it!

The only way you are going to know if you can tolerate it is to try it :)

I can't advise you on the laxative, but I have some info about pills and calcium citrate for you.

Our centre tells us to crush pills for the first few weeks post-op, but after that, swallowing whole pills is the recommended way to go. I expect that at 5.5 months out, you should be good to swallow pills. It might be an idea to try and see how it goes. You can always call your centre first and check out what they recommend.

We were also told "No Calcium Carbonate"... only calcium citrate. I did get some Citracal Petites from the USA. (We live in Ottawa and sometimes go to Watertown or Ogdensburg.) I was told that I should be able to find them in Canada, but I couldn't track them down anywhere in the Ottawa area. Depending on where you are, you may have more luck. I also got the regular sized Citracal calcium pills and for the life of me, I cannot get them down! They're HUGE! Ick.

So last week, I went on Amazon.ca and I found the Bariatric Advantage Calcium Citrate Chews. I got the 90 pack of 500mg chews in Caramel flavour. Be careful: some of the other listings there cost less, but they have fewer milligrams of calcium per chew! Check them out... Bariatric Advantage 90 Caramel Chews (500mg)

I hope this helps you. Wishing you luck!