Does anyone else struggle with swallowing pills?
My wife has struggled her whole life with swallowing pills, but now that she is taking blood pressure medication, it is starting to become an annoyance for her. I know she's not alone with this trait, because many others struggle with it as well, but how does one overcome it? She's crushed them up and bitten into them, but is there any way to train yourself to swallow a pill as is, or is this something that just isn't possible for some people?
I take a gazillion pills twice a day (@14 a pop) and I manage to get them down in one gulp. I've bee doing this my whole life and think I'm able to accomplish it because after I throw the pills in, I REALLY suck the water or milk back hard. Should I do this? Probably not, says this nurse. OF COURSE NOT! However, I'd just as soon get the 'dirty deed' over with and not be reminded that I need to take this many meds,
I wouldn't recommend this to anyone; I've probably done some damage to my esophagu, but who's counting?
Yes, swallowing pills can be a struggle for some. My wife could not swallow pills when I met her. I bought her a special cup designed to fix this. It holds the pill on a little platform, then it releases the pill as you drink the water. You never notice it. Once the initial fear is overcome, it is easy. She pops pills no problem now.
You can buy the cup on Amazon for about 5 bucks. Check out "EzyDose Pill Taking Cup"
I had a problem swallowing pills for the longest time, and, occasionally, I still have a hard time getting them down. I've taken pills for well over ten years, and recently added a regimen of vitamins most of which are horse pills, I swear. This may sound really odd, but the way I overcame the problem was changing how I thought about swallowing them. Swallowing bits of food that isn't completely chewed is, essentially, the same thing as swallowing pills. With this in mind, I drink a mouth-full of whatever I'm drinking, hold it in my mouth for second until my brain "thinks" it's just food and then swallow. I've found using a sweet beverage, like tea or fruit juice, to be more helpful in tricking the brain into easily swallowing the "food." I also found that if I take all of my pills at one time, it simulates swallowing food better than if I take one pill at a time.
I think anyone can train their brain to overcome things like this. My opinion is that it's mind over matter. This isn't to say I never have a problem anymore, on occasion, the pills just don't slid down right, but this happens rarely now. Hope this helps! Tell your wife good luck, and that she can do it, her mind is stronger than the pills!
Wow, thank you! How is your wife doing with the pills?
Not too bad. She has developed a fairly reliable system to take her daily pills, though I can tell it still bothers her when she can't get one down faster. I think it is something that will continue to get easier over time.
Great ideas and great answer. Not only can you simply "imagine" that it is a mouthful of food, you can actually start to chew a bit of bread or something, then put the pill into the mouth and swallow them both together.
Yep. As a child, I choked on a cough drop while doing a handstand. I was apparently born without common sense. Ever since I can't swallow pills. I know it's a mental thing, but that doesn't get me past it.
With a semi-full mouthfull of water, place a tablet into mouth and tilt tour head backwards to swallow a tablet/pill.
Capsules float, so tilt your head forward and allow the capsule to float to the back of mouth before swallowing. This may help some.
Yes its not easy to swallow a pill. Take a drink of water and hold it in the mouth and put a pill in and then swallow instead of throwing a pill in the empty mouth first.
This. It's simply the best way to take a pill!
It has never been much of a problem for me and I can take 10 or so without water.
However there are some, vitamins, that have a rough surface that stick to the roof of my mouth as I swallow.
For those who do have a hard time I suggest taking them with food rather than liquid, fruit works best for me.
Just chew the food as you normally would then toss in the pill at the end and swallow as useuall.
This Hubpage covers the problems of taking pills and what I found to be a Solution. The Oralflo Pill Swallowing Cup takes all of the stress off of the person taking the pills. read more
It just isn't "Possible" for "Some" People. I am one of those people. Fortunately, if you have a compounding center near you (I use APEX Pharmacy) they can turn those nasty little pills into a tasty liquid for her to swallow with no problem.Am 46 years old, and have taken liquids all my life.
by Susannah Birch 10 years ago
What is the easiest way to swallow pills?I hate swallowing pills - especially when I have to take more than one per day, or if they are big pills. How can I make swallowing them easier?
by harmony155 11 years ago
How do you teach a child to swallow pills?
by Nadia Archuleta 9 years ago
Has anyone tried a pill popper to dose a cat (or a dog)?I'm making the quarterly trip to (Lindemann's) grandma's house -- aka, my mom -- and I'm already dreading the Dramamine drama. Has anyone successfully used a pill popper? I've read some have an applicator too big for small pills.I'm...
by tiffyseth 13 years ago
How would one administer melatonin to a 7 yr. old who doesn't swallow pills???
by ChristineVianello 10 years ago
Does anyone know a diet pill with no side effects that effect the heart?Exercise and trying a good diet is what I have been doing. I have gained 30 pounds that I need to loose before my wedding in October! Is there any diet pills that do not have side effects on the heart?
by Carla J Swick 9 years ago
Does anyone struggle with emetophobia?Emetophobia is fear of throwing up and can affect a person's daily life in many ways.
Copyright © 2024 The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers on this website. HubPages® is a registered trademark of The Arena Platform, Inc. Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners. The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers to this website may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.
Copyright © 2024 Maven Media Brands, LLC and respective owners.
As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.
For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy
Show DetailsNecessary | |
---|---|
HubPages Device ID | This is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons. |
Login | This is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service. |
Google Recaptcha | This is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy) |
Akismet | This is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Google Analytics | This is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Traffic Pixel | This is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized. |
Amazon Web Services | This is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy) |
Cloudflare | This is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Hosted Libraries | Javascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy) |
Features | |
---|---|
Google Custom Search | This is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Maps | Some articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Charts | This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy) |
Google AdSense Host API | This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Google YouTube | Some articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Vimeo | Some articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Paypal | This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Login | You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Maven | This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy) |
Marketing | |
---|---|
Google AdSense | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Google DoubleClick | Google provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Index Exchange | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Sovrn | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Ads | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Unified Ad Marketplace | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
AppNexus | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Openx | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Rubicon Project | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
TripleLift | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Say Media | We partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy) |
Remarketing Pixels | We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites. |
Conversion Tracking Pixels | We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service. |
Statistics | |
---|---|
Author Google Analytics | This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy) |
Comscore | ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Tracking Pixel | Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy) |
Clicksco | This is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy) |