I am on maintenance meds for bipolar, insomnia and migraines. Can you take pills or capsules after surgery? Do you have to break them or open them? What should I do about my meds? I don't want to start over after having just found some that work. Most of mine are capsules but my ambien and trazadone and pain meds for migraines are pills. The pain meds are pretty big. Will they get stuck? How do you know if something get stuck anyway?

Hi Zoommomma,

I am newly banded and dealing with medication delivery issues also. I am working very closely with my doctors on this. I have found some of my meds can be crushed, some had to discontinued and replaced with new ones, and some were represcribed in liquid form. Please consult your prescribing docs, they can help you through this.

I don't know if this helps, but I am on antidepressant meds and others and I was able to take them - but they were really small.

Does your meds have a long half life? Depending on what it is, you may be able to skirt a few days. Mine had a very short half life, so wasn't an option for me. But my antidepressant was a capsule that I opened, and the others were small. The only other med I had didn't have a liquid version, so I had to go to a compounding pharmacy and they were able to make it liquid for me. Hope that might help.

I took antidepressants after banding and didn't have a problem. Even when I am too tight I find that I can swallow any type of pill as long as it is not as big as a vitamin. I haven't really tried that big. I have found though the reason I can do this is because the pill stays in my small pouch and dissolves. This can cause acid reflux!! Just found it out. I had problems with pain meds and antibiotics in the form of capsules after a recent foot surgery so I went to my band doctor and found that the capsules were dissolving in my upper stoma and causing the reflux. Not fun, had to get a complete unfill and get liquid antibiotics and liquid pain pills. Just FYI if you take a triptan based migraine med like imitrex DO NOT CUT IT UP. It acutually says it on the package not to cut it up, believe it!!! It foams up when it dissolves and you will end up spitting up foam. Nasty.

Glad you mentioned the reflux, Mbanja. I found that out the hard way:eek:. After taking my meds, I have evacuated the meds from the small pouch with a couple of ounces of fluid or so. This has virtually eliminated the gastric discomfort from my meds. I like the idea of the compound pharmacy morning sun spoke about. I think I will follow up on that one. Thanks!