POLL - How many pills a day?

AM-Celebrate Chewable, chewable D3, chewable calcium, and 2 sublingual B12s...5
PM-Celebrate Chewable, 2 chewable D3, chewable calcium, and 1 sublingual B12...5
Bedtime-Birth Control, Reglan...2

12 "pills" a day, and only 2 of them are prescriptions, down from what used to be 8 prescriptions a day.

17-18, mostly vitamins.

Preop I was on nothing but heavy doses of Aleve or Excedrin for ongoing back pain.  Since surgery, I've not had any back pain, so I'll take my 17 vitamins with glee.

In the morning I take:
MVI - chewable
Biotin  2000 mg
Magnesium  250 mg
Vit D  2000 mg
Folic Acid  800 mg
Vit B12 (sublingual)  2500
B Complex
Calcium crystals (dissolves in my water)

In the evening I take:
MVI - chewable
Calcium crystals

At bedtime:
Lunesta (if needed)
Tylenol (if needed)
Senokot-S (if needed)


So I take anywhere from 9, possibly up to 12.  This doesn't include the calcium crystals that I dissolve in my water twice a day. I do 1 1/2 doses each time for the calcium cause it takes me several hours to drink an entire bottle of water.

 I take daily
2 MVI
2 Iron
1 Nexium
1 Blood Pressure (hopefully not for long!)
1 cholesterol (hopefully not for long!)
1 Lexapro
1 Ambien
3 Carafate liquid

For right now my surgeon stopped my calcium until I get my iron numbers up.  I had my first post op labs done on Friday before Christmas but have not seen results so this may all change!

 Ooh, I take a lot.  All vitamins and such though.  Nothing prescription.

Calcium x 6
Vitamin D x 3
Probiotic x 1
Multi x 2
Iron x 3
Vitamin C x 3
Biotin x 1
B12 x 1
B-complex x 1
Stool softener x 3

I think that's all of it.  I'm going by memory right now.  So that's 24 pills a day - broken up into at least 4, sometimes 5 doses.

Currently twelve per day.

This seems like the ideal place for a question I've been meaning to ask: Several of my pills are not chewables and do need to be taken with food. How do I do that without washing away the food?

I figure that if I take such pills before my meal, it'll get digested long before the food. And if I take them during the meal, the water will wash away the small amount of food that I've eaten so far.

My wild guess has been to take such pills about 5 minutes after finishing my meal, and to use as little water as possible. I figure that will allow my body to begin digesting some of the meal, and then the water will mix the pill into whatever food is still in the pouch.

Does that make any sense?
Does anyone have other suggestions?

I would just take them with as little water as possible, either in the middle of the meal or right after it.  A few sips of water is not gonna wash all the food out of your pouch.

Yay! I guessed right! Thanks again!

 You take the provera for 10 days and your little friend comes to see you.. That's monthly... I hated that pill it gave me such bad cramps .. And moody..