do you take pills or crush them???

During the first week or so after surgery how did you take your medications?  Some of my vitamins are chewable but a few are not and I also am on other meds.  I am so afreaid of swallowing one and causing problems.

You'll get different answers but this is what I was told. Do NOT swallow pills ever again. I have to crush or chew or empty (capsules) all pills for the rest of my life. That's my surgeon's rules. I'm almost 3 months out and I crush everything. It's a heck of a motivator for getting off of the extra meds!! I won't even take tyelnol because it's nasty.

Can I ask why your surgeon wants to you crush everything FOREVER?

Lora

He said swallowing pills whole can cause ulcers.  I don't know if I believe it but ....

I talked to my PCP today and he said to get empty gelatin capsules and put my crushed meds in those.  Apparently it doesn't take much acid to dissolve a gelatin capsule.  I'm off to the health food store to get some!

Ok, thanks.  (I don't "buy" it (and if he were my doctor, I would be asking to see medical references that show evidence of this), but I appreciate knowing what his thinking is.)

Actual gelatin capsules require NO acid to dissolve, by the way.. they dissolve in plain water.  I'm not criticizing you -- we all need to do what we believe is best -- but there is no way that I would take pills and crush them, then mess with trying to load the powder into capsules to then swallow on a daily basis!

Lora

I didn't take it as criticism! 

I don't know.  I have a real problem going against what my surgeon says.  I feel bad enough eating fruit and cereal when I'm not supposed to (I've stopped that btw).  

I DREAD taking my meds now.  I was using sf pudding to get them down.  Nut told me NO sf pudding so I started using sf preserves.  That worked for a while until I got to the point where I gagged start to end.  Now I'm using sf chocolate syrup.  I asked my pcp if I could take a different allergy medicine because Allegra was making me gag so bad.  So he suggested the capsules.  

I'm going to experiment with it tomorrow and if it works for me, I'm going to do a week supply at a time. 

I see my surgeon next week and I'll ask again about the pills.

Thanks, Lora!

Every surgeon has different rules for this.  You need to ask yours and see what they require.  I was swallowing pills in the hospital.  I've never had one get stuck or anything else.  Some pills cannot be crushed.  It really depends on what you are on.  Work with your surgeon and pharmacist to see what is best for you. 

I crush my pills and couldn't stand the taste.  I take a tablespoon and put a little natural applesauce and place it on the bottom of the spoon, heap my meds in the middle and cover with more applesauce.  So basically the applesauce encapsulates the meds.  Now the hard part is getting it down without squishing the pocket of meds.  Its not bad and I don't ever taste the nastiness.  They now allow me to take my smaller meds without crushing, but larger pills must be crushed.

They were giving me whole pills to swallow while I was still in the hospital.  I never had a problem.  Your doctor should advise you, though.

 Not all medications can be crushed.  In fact if you do crush meds that are not to be crushed you can cause all kinds of problems, like ulcers.

Small pills can be tolerated by most RNY patients, as I have seen from this website.  I can take small pills and do swallow them whole, like my thyroid meds.  Large vitamins need to be chewable, I have not found it hard to find chewable.  You can take liquid as well, Tylenol comes in liquid and even thought it is for kids, I just take a bit more.  Works fine.  

You know a med is crushable if there is a line in the pill, right in the middle.  If the pill has no line or crease, talk to your doctor or pharmacist and see if there is a liquid form or another med you can take.  That's what I do.