<p>Normally, I have no trouble swallowing pills. However, I recently have started taking glucosamine with MSM…and…g with chondroitin. </p>
<p>The capsule shaped pills are HUGE. Cutting them in half isn’t helping because they are FAT as well as long. I feel like they are getting stuck in my throat.</p>
<p>What to do? is there a beverage that makes it easier to swallow these horse pills?</p>
<p>Place them halved in applause. They should “melt” a bit & sotten. </p>
<p>Or crush them, and them to applesauce or pudding.</p>
<p>Both ways should make them easy to swallow. </p>
<p>Push 'em far back on your tongue with your fingers before you start to attempt a swallow. Then use some water to help. I suppose you could try dipping it in honey or something, but that’s a theory and I’ve never tried it. </p>
<p>My secret to pill-swallowing: don’t put the pills in the back of your mouth. Put them on top of your tongue, at the front of your mouth. Take a big drink of water–swallow the water, not the pill. The pill will go down.</p>
<p>We take those same pills daily. I pop the pill in my mouth and then take a big drink of water so the pill is almost floating and it just goes down when I swallow the water.</p>
<p>Never could swallow pills with water - but I take them with food. I use bread or crackers, chew the food, when ready to swallow, pop pill in mouth and swallow the food. The pill needs to be on the food and not touching the toungue. </p>
<p>I do it opposite from most people. I put water in my mouth first and then the pill and swallow. That way, the pill never touches my tongue dry and I never have to taste or feel it. </p>
<p>@romani, I knew we would eventually find something we agree on! 
</p>
<p>I find I can swallow big pills much better using a fizzy drink, a coke or something, rather than plain water. Not sure why it works, but for me it’s a huge help.</p>
<p>My grandmother taught me to put pills under my tongue and then drink water like you’re really thirsty. Her rationale wasthat food gets under your tongue when you eat and you don’t have to consciously try to swallow it, so the same with pills. Sounds weird but works for me. </p>
<p>(PS-I think I need a space between “was” and “that” in the first line of this reply but it’s under that emoticon thingy so I can neither see it clearly nor fix it.)</p>
<p>I am going to try some of these ideas…and with SodaStream, it is easy to have carbonated drinks (even if just water) around. Maybe the carbonation adds some air as a cushion?</p>
<p>When i took these pills this morning with very cooled coffee, I felt like they were getting “hung up” at the turn of my throat. I do take them one at a time. I can’t do what H does and down a handful at one time.</p>
<p>If worse comes to worse, I am going to split them lengthwise and again in half.</p>
<p>My theory is that many people have a problem because they try to put the pill far back in the mouth before drinking, thus activating the gag reflex. I think this is less likely to happen if the pill just floats down in the middle of a big swig of water.</p>
<p>After you put the pill in your mouth and are ready to start drinking, tilt your head down a bit, even though for some people it might seem counterintuitive. This will allow the pill to ‘float’ to the top of the liquid (which means toward the back of your mouth) making it easier to go down once you do swallow. When I worked in hospice and I saw elderly people complain of not being able to swallow stuff, I saw the nurses recommend this all the time. It’s all about tilting your head down a bit.</p>
<p>ok…teri…you are the winner!</p>
<p>just tried it and it worked like a charm.</p>
<p>That’s called the chin tuck position. I have all my dysphagia patients start with that before we move on to other testing.</p>
<p>^That works the same as putting the water in your mouth first, as others have suggested. The pill floats on the water and you don’t even notice its there. Then just swallow the whole mouthful of water. </p>
<p>I never could swallow pills. Then I got sick and had to. Number one: use a straw. Wet you mouth first…some water. Then place the pill 3/4 of the ward back. Look straight ahead but look u[. That opens the throat…swallow with the help of the straw. It has a sort of wind tunnel effect. It works</p>
<p>Switch to Cosamin DS - the long capsules are so much easier to swallow than the chalky pills. It is expensive, but after almost choking on one such “rock”, I decided that it was worth it. </p>
<p>Huh? Why would CC bleep out calcium carbonate that is used to write on blackboards? ???</p>
<p>You don’t want to crush all pills–some could be time release or need to release in certain areas of your body. . So don’t do this (unless okayed) for regular maintenance meds.
But for vitamins/supplements…Those “horse pills”. And they just keep getting bigger.
Crush first or break into small parts. Don’t be afraid. Many will start to dissolve in Coke–let them soften up and then drink it.
Better yet…look for supplements that are user friendly (and throat friendly). Many supplements are being made in “candy” form–a gummy chewable that are easy to chew but taste good too. Many supplements come in liquid form–they cost a bit more but why buy something if you can’t swallow it to begin with?
If you have a capsule you can’t swallow (this could be an antibiotic)–cut it in half (or pull it apart if possible) and put a small wad of bread over the cut ends. You’ll end up with two tiny pills easy to swallow.
And lastly…do you need the supplement?</p>
<p>My husband has trouble swallowing a big vitamin pill, he has a smaller throat and tends to choke easily. I switched over to liquid format which is more effective. But somebody has to take then, I hate to waste them, and I don’t like to take vitamins either, so I feed them to the worms, maybe they work extra hard decomposing rotten vegetables. :D</p>