Must my multivitamin be a chewable? I have a friend with band that says her doctor says pills are fine.

I've never had a problem swallowing pills. The dissolve before they reach your stoma. If you want chewables though, GNC has a good brand and so does Viactiv (they taste like chocolate) .

As was told as long as they were smaller than the cap on a small water bottle. I take some solid pills but take a liquid multi-vitamin because I've heard that it's absorbed better.

The dissolve before they reach your stoma.

No, they go right through your stoma. If they dissolved before they got there you'd have a LOT of patients with erosion problems.

So it depends on the size of the pill and what you can tolerate. I can swallow my glucosamine, which I consider to be pretty large... but it does feel like a tight squeeze as is goes through my band. So no, you don't HAVE to get chewables, but really, the more of your Vitamins and pills you can get in chewable or liquid form, the easier it'll be for you. If a pill gets stuck in your stoma, it can do a lot of damage while it dissolves.

I stand corrected! I just assumed that since I never had a problem with pills they just dissolved before they got there. Guess I should've asked! Thanks!

The only ones that dissolve - or partially dissolve - before getting through are Gelatin capsules. Actual pills though and medical capsules (made of gelatin but coated to dissolve more slowly) will not start dissolving until they're in the "big stomach".

Since everything should go through the stoma within 1 minute you can test all of your pills by putting them in a glass of luke warm Water with a bit of salt in it, then time them. That will mimic the situation they're in as they go into your stomach. That way you'll know how fast they dissolve.

Until you know how quickly they go through (for your particular situation) take them 1-2 at a time. For me personally, I'm in my green zone and I take a handful of around 12 Vitamins / minerals and a couple of prescription meds all at once and have no issues.

I'm currently looking into a pill crusher so i can just add my vitamins to my food. Anyone else do this?