Hi all, I take Effexor and its a capsule full of little balls and it says do not chew or crush. I have serious mental side effects if I miss taking this pill for just ONE day. For instance if I take it today and skip tomorrow on Saturday I will be feeling the effects of missing it. So I assume I wont be able to take it on my surgery morning cuz it would be in my stomach possibly for I don't know how long so the morning after my surgery I would HAVE to get those meds back in my system

Am I going to be able to swallow a pill less than 24 hours after surgery?

I will ask the clinic about this but I just needed to get this current obsessive thought out of my head.

check with your clinic. I was able to swallow all my pills whole right away except for two of them - I had to wait a couple of weeks on those.

I was able to take all my pills right after surgery. I would ask but I took all my meds that same day.

I took all of my pills a few hours after surgery. Talk to your clinic, because the real issue is taking it BEFORE surgery. After surgery it took me a long time to take pills, but now I can take all 10 at once like before.

Agree with all of the above - check with your surgeon. I take a med that I cannot miss and was able to take it prior to surgery, but my surgery was later in the day, so it had plenty of time to absorb. Personally, I didn't have any issues with pills post-op so I was able to take all of my regular meds starting the day after surgery.

i had no problem taking any pills right after surgery. I was glad tho they did give me my pain medication in liquid form.

I was swallowing pain meds (capsules & round tablets) & my HRT less than 24hrs after surgery. I had a lot of swelling so it was a bit difficult & it did hurt a little. But everyone has different levels of swelling & it may not be an issue for you at all. After a couple of days it wasn't a problem anymore.

Just make sure the nurses know you have to take your medication & when you have to take it if it time dependent. They are often stretched across patients & time poor & delays & oversights can happen. Overworked & understaffed unfortunately.

Edited April 29, 20224 yr by Arabesque

13 hours ago, amberama76 said:

Hi all, I take Effexor and its a capsule full of little balls and it says do not chew or crush. I have serious mental side effects if I miss taking this pill for just ONE day. For instance if I take it today and skip tomorrow on Saturday I will be feeling the effects of missing it. So I assume I wont be able to take it on my surgery morning cuz it would be in my stomach possibly for I don't know how long so the morning after my surgery I would HAVE to get those meds back in my system

Am I going to be able to swallow a pill less than 24 hours after surgery?

I will ask the clinic about this but I just needed to get this current obsessive thought out of my head.

I have pills that I absolutely can't miss, also. My surgeon's office said I can take them 6 hours before surgery with just enough water to swallow them and make sure they went down. I take pills morning and night, and they said because it's the sleeve I should be ok for the night time dose. I'm hoping they're right.

I had to take pantoprazole and triamterene hctz, and they told me to take is that night after surgery.

On 4/29/2022 at 2:42 AM, amberama76 said:

Hi all, I take Effexor and its a capsule full of little balls and it says do not chew or crush. I have serious mental side effects if I miss taking this pill for just ONE day. For instance if I take it today and skip tomorrow on Saturday I will be feeling the effects of missing it. So I assume I wont be able to take it on my surgery morning cuz it would be in my stomach possibly for I don't know how long so the morning after my surgery I would HAVE to get those meds back in my system

Am I going to be able to swallow a pill less than 24 hours after surgery?

I will ask the clinic about this but I just needed to get this current obsessive thought out of my head.

Checking in with your clinic is a great idea. Sometimes medications come in liquid form. I have one 100mg large pill to take. It didn't come in liquid form where I live but it does come in a much smaller dose in a smaller size. So 4 little ones vs 1 horse pill. Thankfully another medication can be changed to be crushable. Hope it isnt too disgusting. I am sure that your clinic will be able to sort something out for you. Good Luck.

Please make sure you speak with your surgeon and anesthesiologist in advance to see what they say, you may be able to take it before surgery as long as they're aware of it.

After my surgery, that evening I was able to take medicine in pill form (painkillers) so it's definitely doable.

I know the OP profile has Sleeve but this being the Gastric Bypass forum I believe some things need to be said.

The OP is describing a time released medication. For Gastric Bypass, time released medications can be problematic.

Some seem to have no issues while others seem to fail completely, and of course many fall in between these extremes. I had pain medications that failed completely, while my Iron seems to work adequately. My heart Doc didn't even want to risk time released not working. There are meds I take where I handle spreading the immediate release meds through the day.

Further adding to the mix, my experience and the experience of many others is that some non-time release medications for which you can feel an effect don't last as long as they did pre-op, so it requires a bit of manipulation/planning to deal with the changes.

Talk to the surgeon because if they actually talk to their patients they should have a decent idea of which time released meds can be problematic.

I've noticed also that some Sleeve people dump (which would indicate the pyloric valve isn't working as a gate keeper as well as pre-op, so for some Sleeve folks all these time released issues may possibly likewise be an issue, perhaps to a lesser extent, so pay attention early on.

Good luck,

Tek

On 4/29/2022 at 2:42 AM, amberama76 said:

Hi all, I take Effexor and its a capsule full of little balls and it says do not chew or crush. I have serious mental side effects if I miss taking this pill for just ONE day. For instance if I take it today and skip tomorrow on Saturday I will be feeling the effects of missing it. So I assume I wont be able to take it on my surgery morning cuz it would be in my stomach possibly for I don't know how long so the morning after my surgery I would HAVE to get those meds back in my system

Am I going to be able to swallow a pill less than 24 hours after surgery?

I will ask the clinic about this but I just needed to get this current obsessive thought out of my head.

How did you go at the clinic asking for an alternative?