I have a feeling that I’m going to be popping several Tylenol today. It’s going to be a long day…
I blogged yesterday that I was fretting about our neighbor’s fence. The fence contractor he hired showed up bright and early this morning (and it’s in the 40’s here, hard to believe, since it was 86 on Monday!), and started tearing down his fence. We share one side of our yard with him and so now, I have a gaping hole where there used to be a fence. Which means Beau can’t go out on his own to take care of business, hang out or whatever. He is NOT a happy dog. We’re only a couple of hours into the project and already he’s really upset. He hears them banging and drilling and making noise and he is about to tear down the back door to go out and investigate. He’s a territorial kind of dog and rather protective of me, and our house and yard. So, needless to say, I already have a headache and I will probably have to go get some Tylenol soon.
So, I thought I would do a quick Question of the Day: Can you swallow pills without any kind of liquid? I absolutely cannot, but Tim can. He always amazes me. He doesn’t take Tylenol or Advil very often, but when he does, he takes two in his hand, pops them in his mouth and just swallows them. I absolutely cannot do this. I have to have liquid of some kind and then sometimes I have trouble getting the larger pills down. When I was younger, I couldn’t swallow pills at all, but I did finally learn. How about you – do you have any trouble swallowing pills? Have you always been able to, or did you struggle to learn? Can you swallow them dry, without liquid?
If my mouth is dry…no. If it’s advil with that smooth sweet coating or a REALLY little pill, I can if I have to; but I prefer using some liquid.
I HAVE to have liquid to take pills. Jono is the same as Tim – he can take them without liquid (though he does use liquid most of the time). I’ve always had trouble swallowing pills. When I was a kid and we had to take our weekly malaria medicine my mom would crush it up in jelly for me until I learned to swallow pills. I can’t stand the taste of them. I’ll take them with water, but sometimes I gag and then the taste of the pills lingers. So flavored liquid works better for me.
I have a quirky way to take pills. I put them between my front teeth and then drink. As I drink, they go down. I started doing this when I was young so I didn’t have to taste them, and I still do it (I take allergy medicine daily). I guess habits are hard to break!
The only pills I can swallow without any liquid is birth control pills. They’re so small, it’s easy. That was back in the day, though … me being preggy just shows I don’t try that trick anymore, LOL!
I have to have a flavored drink … COKE … when I take my pills. If I even see someone taking pills with water, I starting violently gagging, LOL.
I take 4 pills a day and my biggest is the prenatal … that’s a hard pill to swallow!!
I have to be one of the worst pill swallowers ever! MUST have liquid with them, no matter how small they are. And I was well into my twenties before I ever swallowed my first pill. I just had some kind of mental block to it, and no matter how hard I tried or what techniques I used, as soon as that pill got to the back of my tongue, I’d gag and out it would come. My back hurts quite a lot every now and then and has all my life, so I took baby aspirins because they were chewable for years after I should have ’cause have you ever tried to chew Tylenol or Advil? Yuck!
I think my adversion to pill swallowing is probably connected to my choking phobia, which started when I choked on a hamburger when I was ten. My windpipe was completely blocked and I wasn’t breathing at all. Thankfully my father was able to snatch me up, turn me upside down and shake it out of me because we were far enough away from any medical help at the time, that I surely would have died. The pill issues seemed to start about that time.
Finally when I was in my mid-twenties, I had a cold and I thought I’d try to swallow one of those tiny red Sudafed pills — they’re SO small! Much to my surprise, it went down! After that, I worked my way up to pills the size of Advil, but anything much bigger than that is still off limits. I can do capsules if they’re 250 mg, but not the 500 mg ones. I have a special way of getting capsules down. I fill my mouth with liquid, poke the capsule in and then bend over, parallel to the floor — that causes the capsule to float to the back of my mouth, and I can swallow it easier.
I CAN do it, but I prefer not to. I have to work up a good mouthful of spit though! Gross, I know! I’ve never even tried to swallow anything big like vitamins before–only small stuff like advil or lactaid! So sorry about your dilemma–that would be miserable. Praying your headache subsides and your sweet puppy dog calms down!
no way! I actually choke sometimes when I take those pills with water!
And I think it is a good thing that the doggy is so territorial, though its gonna hurt your head today.
I HAVE to have water to swallow pills! I was older before I even learned how, teenager maybe? So I won’t push my luck just trying to swallow!
Got my thing done you passed to me!
My whole family has always laughed at me because I have to hold my left, um, you know, in order to swallow any pill – large or small. I’m sure you wanted to know that. But hey, it WORKS. And yes, I have to have liquid and preferably plenty of it. Otherwise I feel like the pill gets stuck in my esophagus somewhere and that’s the worst feeling!
It depends …
on how much pain I’m in and how badly I want them. lol For the most part, I can swallow them without water, but like Susie, they get stuck going down and then I panic and start acting all dramatic and like I’m going to choke and die and my husband rolls his eyes and the boys get all worried until I wink or something and then they breathe easier …
How’s that for a long-winded answer? lol
Now MK, he has the most sensitive gag reflex of anybody I know and simply CAN NOT swallow any pills larger than a Sudafed and then with only water. That child … it’s terrible when he allergies – which is right now. *sigh*
MUST HAVE LIQUID!
And like you, I couldn’t swallow pills when I was younger. I think I learned to swallow about college. I used to break them open over ice cream and eat the capsules that way… I miss that excuse for ice cream….
I can’t believe how fast people respond to your posts. I don’t even have that many checking my blog on a normal day!
I have no problem swallowing pills without liquid, provided they are small and coated.
Oh yeah, must have liquid to swallow them. I have swallowed Dramamine before during a desperate moment: once on a plane, as I was terribly airsick and had nothing to drink.
When I was a a kid, I had a terrible aversion to swallowing pills, no matter how small. I remember having the flu where I ran a fever for a week, when I was 11. I couldn’t swallow the regular Tylenol, so she bought me Tylenol Jr., which are teeny-tiny pills for older kids. I still couldn’t do it. No matter what I tried, I’d gag and have to spit it out. I still remember the mental trauma! So when she took me to the Dr., he prescribed liquid Tylenol and a liquid antibiotic. I was humiliated taking the liquid, but I just couldn’t do the pills.
I don’t remember exactly when, but at some point in my teenage years, I conquered my fear. For a long time, I was able to swallow small ones but not the bigger ones. Now, I can swallow anything! I can take a whole mouthful of pills at a time, even. My prenatal vitamins are the hugest pills I’ve ever seen, and I can even take them when I’m feeling sick. I just have to have liquid!
I forgot to comment on Beau. Poor doggie! And poor you! I hope it goes faster than expected. Maybe, just maybe they’ll finish before the weekend—you never know; they could end up way ahead of schedule. Hang in there (both of you)!
I haven’t tried in a while, but I don’t think so! I suppose if I were stranded and needed my Advil, I probably could, but I prefer to drink a big glass of water with any meds.
I forgot to say I hope it gets better soon with the fence issue!
I have to have liquid, and if they’re really big (like multi-vitamins) I have to eat something afterward for it to go down. I can’t stand the feeling of them being caught in my throat! I bought myself some children’s chewable vitamins a few weeks back so that I wouldn’t have to swallow them. However, I think I did learn fairly quickly to swallow them, but after a bad episode of a Nyquil gel cap getting caught, I refuse to swallow pills unless I just absolutely have to!
Now you’ll see why I complain about taking out Nevada each time she has business, even in the 20 + mph wind, snow or rain…….grr………..
Pills? I can’t swallow them if I think about it…with liquid or without. I feel for you on the dog situation. We don’t have a dog, because we don’t have a fence across the back of our yard. The coyotes use our yard as a pathway to roam the neighborhood. Good luck with the fence building!
First of all, I hope you’re feeling better! But it sounds like it’s gonna be a loooong 5 days, huh?
As for the pills, I can dry swallow them and do sometimes. But I much prefer to do it with liquid!
Have you read Time Traveler? You will have to tell me what you thought–without any spoilers–if you have. I plan to read it while eating chocolate, drinking Coke, and glancing at my azaleas every once in a while! Hope your day got better as it went along.
I can but I try not to. I always feel like they are stuck somewhere. Also my neice had a habit of swallowing pills without liquid. She got a horribly sore throat and went to the doctor and discovered some irritation to her esophagus due to a pill being lodged and dissolving in there. SO they told her the proper way to take a pill is to take a good sip of water, then take the pill in your mouth, then wash it down with a big swig. To the tune of like 8 oz.
Hi Stacy! I’ve been out of town so I am so behind! Sorry about your fence problem. We have a problem like that myself. Our neighbors fence is FALLING DOWN! They said they were going to fix it last year (they have a pool) because they knew us and the other neighbor have a toddler, but then never did it.
As for the pills, I can swallow coated pills without a beverage, but not the plain chalky ones. I actually do my best not to take any pills, so it’s usually not a problem, but I do take them sometimes..
Hope all is well!!!!!
Yes, I can swallow pills w/o liquid, no problem! Not my sister though – she can barely get them down WITH liquid!
BUT funny you talk about a fence. We’re just getting ready to construct a 6′ privacy fence on the one side of our yard. Hope we don’t give our neighborgirl a headache!
i absolutely must have at least something to drink when taking a pill. preferably something to eat. i hate the way a pill feels in my throat. it always feels like it’s stuck there, even though i know it isn’t.
Hi Stacy. Sorry to hear that Beau is not taking things lightly. I can imagine how upset he is for not being able to go out on will. The sudden change in rules and the noise must be very upsetting for him. Sorry to hear about your headache. Hope the project will be fiinished soon.
No, I cannot swallow a pill without some form of liquid but I have no problem with large pills as long as I have some water.
Wow, look at the response to your QOD. I hope you are feeling better soon, and that the fence trauma is over without too much more aggravation.
Now on to the pill swallowing… My dad used to tease me severely over my pill phobia, but my mother always asked the dr. to give me liquid prescriptions. I was 17 before I learned how to swallow a pill. I still have to concentrate really hard to get a pill to go down. Sometimes drinking more than one glass of water. I could not even imagine taking a pill without some form of liquid.
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