Thursday, September 22, 2011

An illustrated guide for taking gross pills.

There are a plethora of really BAD tasting pills out there, and while children are usually the ones we need to worry about, some of them taste so bad that even adults need some help getting them down. The pills, not the children, what's wrong with you!?

I started taking Prednisone a week ago.  After two days, I couldn't take it any more and didn't think I would be able to force one more pill down my gullet, let alone four a day, so I used my well-cultivated creativity and came up with a way to take them without having to run around in circles, gagging and shuddering. I'm not even kidding. That stuff is horrible, almost beyond measure. As bad as guaifenesin (mucus reducing pills) and flagyl (you're usually nauseated before you take this, the taste doesn't help) or any prenatal liver vitamin.

So I bring you, my handy dandy guide (for adults and children) to take pills that make you want to shave your own taste buds off:


One word of advice: Be sure to take care to wrap the pill tightly. Pokey edges don't facilitate the swallowing process, at all!

And clearly, use liquid to swallow the pills, still. Do I need to mention that? 

17 comments:

  1. This is.... actually... a REALLY GOOD IDEA! Wow!

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  2. Wow, that is really smart. It prolly takes longer for the pill to start working when you do this tho.

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  3. I love it! This is amazing! True that it would likely take the pill longer but still. If you don't need it immediately. Or just take it a bit earlier. It should work!

    That being said, I'm like a pill expert. I take vitamins and birth control pill and I've been known to use sleeping pills and caffeine pills lol. I've never had any problem with any of them.

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  4. I like it that "take pills without gagging!" is part of the instructions

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  5. I will try this next time I have a yucky pill I need to take. Luckily all the pills I have now are not yucky tasting unless it stays in my mouth for more then a few seconds.

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  6. You are like the Martha Stewart of Montana - has anyone ever told you that? And I mean that in a nice way.

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  7. Does peanut butter work too? I guess it would be harder to swallow maybe. "Hey, you got Prednisone in my peanut butter... Well you got peanut butter on my Prednisone!"

    Note that the fruit roll-up trick only works on pills. Not recommended for injections.

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  8. When my niece was little I would chocolate coat the yucky pills she had to take(Princess Bride doesn't lie!) it worked great except for the three days I accidentally gave her raisinettes instead!

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  9. Hi JRose!

    Super-fun blog. I am a new follower. I just re-nominated you for a Versatile Blogger award. You can nominate a few other "up-and-coming" blogs you think are cool (and where did that term come from, "up-and-coming"? I never hear anyone say "down-and-leaving"). I know Mary at Just Inappopriate already did this, but twice is even better than once! but twice is even better than once!

    best,
    MOV

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  10. Take your prednisone with milk not water. It made it easier for me. Also, be prepare to swallow those shits quicky, they are NASTY.

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  11. Boo prednisone in general! But it gives you a handy medical excuse if you go on a traffic-robot-like killing spree, no? (Can you tell I'm catching up on several days of posts?)

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  12. Seriously clever! Thanks, Jodee!!

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  13. I bought a pill-splitter at Walmart for about $4 and now granddaughter can swallow her pills. It's easier to swallow them in a spoonful of Swiss Mix pudding than to take with a liquid.

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  14. You can also buy empty gelatin capsules and pop the pills in there (I'm a pharmacist, it's one of our many tricks) but I like this idea! When you add bitter meds to something like jam or pudding, it tends to just make a larger amount of gross stuff to take. (Bitter taste is hard to dilute!) So this masks it, without spreading the bitterness around. I've also used peanut butter or regular butter for giving pills to my cat (covers up the med and sticks to the roof of their mouths so they have to swallow it).

    It will not delay the effect of the medication by more than a few minutes (see what happens when you drop a piece of fruit-roll-up in water), which might make a difference for something like headache meds that you need to work, like, yesterday, but usually doesn't matter, especially for something like prednisone. Awesome. Sharing!

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