Difficulty swallowing pills

[Sunnyer 131]

I had a gastric sleeve operation two weeks ago. Have now started on puree food and am doing ok, food wise and not in any pain.

However, I am frequently nauseous and I have a very difficult time swallowing tablets. I have to take meds for high blood pressure and blood sugar. One of my motivations for having the surgery was to hopefully get off some of the meds in due time. I still have to take them for now, though, but it's proving to be quite difficult.

I take them one pill at a time and drink a bit of Water with each. Even if I wait between each pill and try not to drink too much water, I often feel nauseous after and sometimes gag and have dry heaves. Tonight, I ended up vomiting when I still had one pill left. I vomited up the second to last pill and kept vomiting after that, just water and possibly some or all of the dissolved meds.

Has anyone had the same problem and what did you do?

[futurefeatherweight 64]

I am a hospital pharmacist so I manage this issue regularly for patients. Personally, my doctor had me get a pill crusher to use for the first few weeks after surgery. Some of the medications are really nasty tasting when you powder them though (especially metformin- since you mentioned that you are diabetic, I figured you might be on this one.) You can add your crushed medications to a little applesauce or pudding to try to make them a little more palatable. If you have drugs in capsules, many capsules can be opened and added to applesauce or pudding. My only caution would be that if you take extended release forms of drugs (anything that has SA- slow acting, LA- long acting, or XR- extended release in the name) check with your doctor or pharmacist before crushing or splitting the medication because it can cause you to receive the entire dose of medication all at once instead of slowly releasing it throughout the day which with some medications can be a very dangerous thing.

If the taste of your crushed medications is too awful to tolerate, try using a pill splitter and just split them to as small as you need.

[kcuster83 1,502]

Maybe they are too big? Are you able to cut them in half? Worth a shot.

[ShoppGirl 3,340]

3 hours ago, futurefeatherweight said:

I am a hospital pharmacist so I manage this issue regularly for patients. Personally, my doctor had me get a pill crusher to use for the first few weeks after surgery. Some of the medications are really nasty tasting when you powder them though (especially metformin- since you mentioned that you are diabetic, I figured you might be on this one.) You can add your crushed medications to a little applesauce or pudding to try to make them a little more palatable. If you have drugs in capsules, many capsules can be opened and added to applesauce or pudding. My only caution would be that if you take extended release forms of drugs (anything that has SA- slow acting, LA- long acting, or XR- extended release in the name) check with your doctor or pharmacist before crushing or splitting the medication because it can cause you to receive the entire dose of medication all at once instead of slowly releasing it throughout the day which with some medications can be a very dangerous thing.

If the taste of your crushed medications is too awful to tolerate, try using a pill splitter and just split them to as small as you need.

I will add that I found a pill crusher at Walmart pre surgery (I didn’t end up needing it though). Anyways, they are fairly inexpensive but as mentioned above ask a dr or pharmacist to make sure your meds can be crushed safely first. Crushing certain medications can be dangerous. Also, my pharmacist said you can mix it with as much applesauce or yogurt that you want but you must obviously eat it all to get the entire dose of medicine so keep that in mind. Also, I did end up crushing a big antibiotic my husband kept gagging on. I mixed it in a full yogurt and he said he couldn’t even taste the medicine. It may not have been one of the bad tasting ones to begin with though. I’m not sure if it tastes gross which would be better a tiny bit to just tough it out or a little more to help dilute it some.

[oldandtired 238]

My own wicked mind had the same question for me, and I thought about wrapping my pills in a piece of cheese. You know, like we do for our pets... 😂😂

[ClareLynn 153]

I'm 10 months out and still blitz my pills in a coffee grinder and mix it into a tablespoon of applesauce. I used to be able to shotgun 10 pills at a time, and now post op I still feel super sick when I swallow just a single pill. 🤷‍♀️

[kcuster83 1,502]

1 minute ago, ClareLynn said:

I'm 10 months out and still blitz my pills in a coffee grinder and mix it into a tablespoon of applesauce. I used to be able to shotgun 10 pills at a time, and now post op I still feel super sick when I swallow just a single pill. 🤷‍♀️

ehhh That sucks. I hated crushing and swallowing pills post-op. I seem to be fine with pills now, even 2 or 3 at a time. Luckily!

[Bettyboop56 33]

I couldn't get my crushed Metformin down in my choc pudding after surgery. So I quit taking them as my glucose readings were 90 AC 6.5. Family Dr thought I would be off it after surgery but agreed I could go off early and evaluate with 2 month checkup. Now 7 weeks later had labs done for annual physical. My A1C is 5.3. Had to move Dr appt to January. But feel confident not taking meds since my diabetes is diet controlled.

[ReddWolfe 4]

Pre surgery I was told that I will have to crush or chew pills post op. But during my hospital stay, they were feeding me whole pills so that’s what I kept doing at home. I was told preop to crush or chew them. Try mixing in food. Etc

[ShoppGirl 3,340]

I was swallowing my pills the day after surgery at the hospital as well. They do have those pill crushers at Walmart though and I was told by the pharmacist it’s okay to mix it in with like half a yogurt or more to dilute the gross taste. Just keep in mind that to get the full dose you have to eat it all.

[Bettyboop56 33]

I used chocolate pudding made with dry powder milk to add Protein.