I am having gastric bypass on March 4. I have several medications that I take that have nothing to do with weight loss surgery, and I will add the bariatric vitamins after surgery. I've been told that I will need to crush the pills for a while, and I wanted to hear how people dealt with that. Do you put them in a protein drink, in water, or something else?

I read that you can crush them and mix with sugar-free Cool Whip. But, I'm not speaking from experience. I was able to swallow pills in the hospital.

I was taking everything except those giant calcium pills and ursodiol in pill form as soon as I left the hospital. I had to wait two or three weeks on those two because they were too big to swallow. I think I quartered the calcium pills or took a chewable one during that time - I can't remember.

9 hours ago, Recidivist said:

I am having gastric bypass on March 4. I have several medications that I take that have nothing to do with weight loss surgery, and I will add the bariatric Vitamins after surgery. I've been told that I will need to crush the pills for a while, and I wanted to hear how people dealt with that. Do you put them in a Protein Drink, in Water, or something else?

I tried crushing and mixing Mine with a bit of flavored water but it's so gross I stopped after about a week. Now I space mine out(I take several) and keep the size in mind. If they are small I take as is and I portion the larger ones in quarters or more. It has worked for me except the other night I took 2 tylenol pm and only broke them in half and didn't remove the casing and I got nauseated. Next time I will remove using and cut smaller.

Thanks to everyone for your input. I'm sure I will figure this out once I've had surgery, like everything else. I have already had all of my meds switched to pills instead of capsules so they can be cut or crushed.

I never had to crush anything. I was able to take small pills even while in the hospital. Just for my own peace of mind, I took chewable tylenol for the first couple weeks. And, because vitamins tend to be large, I did chewables for those for quite a while. Only switched to regular vitamins at about 6 or 8 months out (mostly because I had a large supply of the chewables).

For bigger pills, they probably need crushed if you can't get them in chewable form. Crushing is pretty easy. You can buy pill crushers pretty cheap, but they aren't absolutely necessary. Put the pills in a zip lock bag and hit them with a rolling pin/similar. Put them in pudding, whipped cream, applesauce. Slide right down.

Disclaimer: You cannot crush time-released medications, so you'll need to talk with the prescribing doctor if you have any meds that are time-released.

On 02/20/2019 at 1:34 AM ,Orchids&Dragons said:

I read that you can crush them and mix with sugar-free Cool Whip. But, I'm not speaking from experience. I was able to swallow pills in the hospital.

Me too, they came marching in with a med and a pull crusher, OSU makes you a gift of one inScarlet with the college seal on it." Woah I said , just let me see that rascal" Yep I can swallow that and did, did cruch my chewable multivite, almost turned me off pureed applesauce forever! Ever tried swallowing vitamin-tasting Kitty Litter slurry? After about a week or so of these fun and games, I dug out my prenatal caplets, only 1 a day,more nutritionally complete, even iron there. My secret- 1 oz cuplet of liquid, toss in the pull and let it ride the wave down to my tummy-tum-tum. Finally owned up to it at 1 month in , visible jerk on nurse's body then she said "Different Strokes Different Folks" and that was that!???Power to the Plump RedHaired Princess *1 Bariatric Staff*Nil!

I used the vitamins by barimelts.

We are surgery twins! Pills are much easier to swallow with a textured medium as opposed to a thin liquid. Take it with a spoon full of yogurt or cottage cheese and you should be fine. Good luck to you!!

Any suggestions for taking carafate? I’m supposed to crush and mix with 10cc of water. It’s like drinking liquid sidewalk chalk. Problem is you can’t eat or drink 30 mins before or after. Wonder what would happen if I just took the tablet without crushing?

1 hour ago, larisa1 said:

Any suggestions for taking carafate? I’m supposed to crush and mix with 10cc of Water. It’s like drinking liquid sidewalk chalk. Problem is you can’t eat or drink 30 mins before or after. Wonder what would happen if I just took the tablet without crushing?

I was taking them whole, but recently had an EGD procedure that left my pipes feeling a bit raw. So, I chewed it, swished around with a mouthful of water and swallowed it down. Yes, it's a bit like sidewalk chalk, but you know what? It worked MUCH better doing it that way. I plan to keep doing it that way. The chalky taste/feeling is temporary while the benefits of taking it that way is much longer lasting. Totally worth it IMHO.

4 hours ago, Cher in NYC said:

We are surgery twins! pills are much easier to swallow with a textured medium as opposed to a thin liquid. Take it with a spoon full of yogurt or cottage cheese and you should be fine. Good luck to you!!

Hi, Cher. Are you also having surgery on March 4?

Thanks for the suggestion! I've already had my capsule medication changed to crushable pill. I'll try a few methods and see what works. I understand the bariatric vitamins are particularly vile.

2 minutes ago, Recidivist said:

Hi, Cher. Are you also having surgery on March 4?

Thanks for the suggestion! I've already had my capsule medication changed to crushable pill. I'll try a few methods and see what works. I understand the bariatric Vitamins are particularly vile.

Yes, I am! 8 days away and I am a ball of nerves and butterflies. My shipment of Bariatric Advantage vitamins arrived today and I tested them. The multivitamin was a chalky horror but the caramel calcium chew was tolerable, like a subpar Werther's candy. How are you feeling? Good luck to you!!

4 minutes ago, Cher in NYC said:

Yes, I am! 8 days away and I am a ball of nerves and butterflies. My shipment of Bariatric Advantage Vitamins arrived today and I tested them. The Multivitamin was a chalky horror but the caramel Calcium chew was tolerable, like a subpar Werther's candy. How are you feeling? Good luck to you!!

Physically I'm feeling surprisingly good--the liquid diet has been quite manageable. Emotionally I vacillate between "OMG, what am I doing?" and "I can't wait for this process to start."

So I never crushed my pills I had gastric bypass 6 months ago I take several psych meds see if any need adjustment that are specifically bioavailability. Things like geodon latuda. These are important because you need 350 calories to absorb

I've been crushing mixing my pills with water... at first I didnt mix it with anything but water but couldn't do it anymore like that. So I ended up adding a splenda packet which is acceptable because it's a sugar substitute. It is still gross but definitely better than before.