Swallowing pills

[NYCGAL000 59]

Is it hard to swallow aspirin and Vitamins after you have gastric sleeve and can you take laxatives if you get constipated? Whenever I have low carbs I get horribly constipated...ugggh

[Navigating the Wilderness 824]

I wouldn't try anything bigger than aspirin for a month after surgery. After that any gel caps should be fine, bigger pills may need to be crushed, but physically I have not had and problem with pills.

oh and incidentally I would actually stay away from aspirin, and definitely never use NSAIDs. Tylenol is ok though. Of course always double-check with your doc.

[NYCGAL000 59]

thank you!

[sc09 95]

My surgeon told me at my 6 week check up I could take pills again, however I'm still too chicken and continue with chewable vitamins and liquid Tylenol and Zyrtec. lol

[Syaniya 319]

Yes, Ive been taking pills since right after surgery, if they were too big they recommend using a pill splitter. Although they did not recommend any gelcaps, said they may have a harder time going down.

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[Joann454 1,329]

Yes, Ive been taking pills since right after surgery, if they were too big they recommend using a pill splitter. Although they did not recommend any gelcaps, said they may have a harder time going down.

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Same here. All my booklets said to crush them but the surgeon said it'd be fine to swallow them. I still do chewable vitamins and calcium citrate though.

[Navigating the Wilderness 824]

38 minutes ago, Suaniya said:

Although they did not recommend any gelcaps, said they may have a harder time going down.

I strongly disagree with this. Gelcaps will dissolve in gastric fluids where normal pills will not necisarily. My surgeon and I discussed this at length. With over 10,000 surgeries he has never had a patient get a gelcap stuck because they dissolve. He has had plenty of times with regular pills doing this and we discussed his many 'fishing' adventures removing blockages in the sleeve from pills that would not digest. On a side note, he said antibiotic drugs were the worst culprits for this issue. Lastly, I'm in favor of crushing pills rather than splitting them (that is as long as they are not some type of extended release coated medications). The crushed pills will taste horrible, but are much more sleeve-friendly.

Edited July 2, 2017 by Navigating the Wilderness

[Joann454 1,329]

I strongly disagree with this. Gelcaps will dissolve in gastric fluids where normal pills will not necisarily. My surgeon and I discussed this at length. With over 10,000 surgeries he has never had a patient get a gelcap stuck because they dissolve. He has had plenty of times with regular pills doing this and we discussed his many 'fishing' adventures removing blockages in the sleeve from pills that would not digest. On a side note, he said antibiotic drugs were the worst culprits for this issue.

Ack, "fishing"!

Wonder why my surgeon was so liberal about me taking my meds without crushing? Fortunately I didn't have to have a fishing expedition!

[Navigating the Wilderness 824]

2 minutes ago, Joann454 said:

Ack, "fishing"!

Haha, yeah, he said the worst was 31 Amoxicillin tabs that another doctor had proscribed without fully understanding the patient had been sleeved.

There are still several tablets I take without crushing, but none are any bigger than an aspirin tablet.

[Joann454 1,329]

Haha, yeah, he said the worst was 31 Amoxicillin tabs that another doctor had proscribed without fully understanding the patient had been sleeved.
There are still several tablets I take without crushing, but none are any bigger than an aspirin tablet.

31!!?
After a month I went back to a large time release capsule...hope it's ok.

[Navigating the Wilderness 824]

Yeah, the best thing I did was haul in a bag of all my drugs. Told him to pick what was acceptable and what needed to be crushed. I did not have any extended release meds though.