i would’ve thought the doctor asking ‘probing personal questions’ would tell her details about the pills/what to expect as well
Victor
My own experience with university health services doctors would suggest otherwise. That was the only time in my life I’ve ever gotten “I’m the doctor here” from any doctor.
(I had a sinus infection. My sinus infections are amoxicillin-resistant. I asked for doxycycline, and explained why. Cue above line. Three miserable days later I’m back. Fortunately she was at least capable of learning and didn’t pull that stunt again. She was still the worst doctor I’ve ever had, and I was stuck with her for four years, they wouldn’t let me switch.)
Joy
…Why didn’t they let you switch??
Taellosse
I have no specific knowledge in this case, but I will say, “never underestimate the petty unhelpfulness of professional bureaucrats.” Sometimes you’ll get one who actually sees it as their responsibility to leverage their knowledge of their organization’s systems and policies in service to the needs of outsiders needing aid, but more often any given functionary is (or chooses to behave as) a nearly-thoughtless drone who does only what they must do to avoid disciplinary action. And sometimes you’ll be confronted with someone who wields whatever measure of administrative power their position holds as a weapon, inflating their own ego by capriciously abusing others through the authority they control. Such active malice (particularly when not motivated by more specific antipathy) is pretty rare – much less common than the genuinely helpful type, and almost invisible when scattered among the great mass of disinterested drones – but it can be pretty remarkable how much misery they can generate without suffering any consequences of their own.
Librain
That’s especially egregious at a university where there’s a significantly better than average chance the person you’re treating is studying something relevant, or is in regular contact with someone who is.
It’s really not that hard to personally know a couple of Med students in uni. Or microbiology. Or Pharmacology…
When I take my meds, I first put some water/drinking liquid in my mouth, then push the pill between my lips, then swallow. That way, I never have to taste them.
Kazuma Taichi
my go to method to minimize tasting chance is to chuck them into my mouth as hard as I can and tilt my head back at the same time so they hopefully land beyond where I have any taste buds, and then I chug water until I can’t feel them no more
Needfuldoer
I take a swallow’s worth of water, chuck the pill in, and gulp it before my tongue knows what hit it.
Pills are bitter, but usually not that bad. More tolerable than cough syrup “cherry” and that “citrus” stuff that tasted like vomit. (Artificial grape is at least palatable, even if it’s more “allegedly grape shoe polish” than “Mott’s”.)
Paradox
I used to do this, and still do for particularly large and/or nasty tasting pills
Most of the time, I find that most pills don’t really taste like anything, or maybe I’ve just gotten used to my regular medication
SAME.
Also, since having to take a painkillar that was bitter as heck, i’ve gotten used to a technique that encases the pill in water in my mouth, preventing it from touching my taste buds, i even do it with non-bitter pills now.
That’s what I do for pills! For the longest time I tried with water and couldn’t do it. That’s the only way I was told how. Dry swallowing pills changed my life. So easy!
I don’t see what the problem is with taking pills, my bedtime meds total 7 pills, 6 that have to be swallowed whole and one that has to dissolve under my tongue to be effective. I take all 6 pills at once with just a little water no problem. Of course it helps I have been taking multiple pills every day since the truck hit me in 2001, so I’m used to it.
It depends a lot on the person. My mother has been taking a variety of daily meds for years, but still has issues sometimes. (Due to an esophageal web, she has occasional issues with swallowing anything.) OTOH, I rarely have any trouble swallowing pills, even without water. Then again, my total pill intake in the past year was probably about half a dozen ibuprofen.
Inahc
my birth control actually *helped* me with pills; triquilar is the second-smallest pill I’ve ever had, and has a nice slick coating that lasts long enough for at least two attempts. getting my throat used to accepting a tiny pill every day made it easier to navigate getting the occasional larger pill down. relatively speaking.
also esophagus issues are fucking bullshit! uuuggghhhhhh I want a new esophagus, damnit. instead I’m stuck on pills that are bad for my bones (and don’t have as nice a coating as triquilar).
Destiny’s Child as in the group Beyoncé used to be a part of. I assume (not being all that familiar with them) that this is a reference to their song Bills, Bills, Bills.
The first time I was prescribed pills I had to swallow (antibiotics course), I couldn’t do it. I was maybe 10 at the time. I tried several times, then tried chewing it– that was gross. After that, I just pretended to take the pills each day while actually wrapping them in tissue and throwing them out. Luckily, my toe healed without issue, and everyone said I did a good job.
It is funny because I was the opposite. The doctor had to make an exception and give me pills when I was four, because liquid medication made me retch every time. (My gran’s conviction that Syrup of Fig would fix whatever ailed you was challenged by the fact I would IMMEDIATELY spew it all over the floor.)
I learned to take pills at 4 because I was a brittle asthmatic and HATED the taste of theophylline syrup so much.
Theophylline is a hard core asthma med they don’t use much anymore. It’s so hazardous you need weekly blood work to make sure it’s not poisoning your heart or liver. In the 90s it came in this godawful syrup that somehow had a clingy mouth feel and was simultaneously sweet and so bitter it almost hurt. I hated that stuff so much.
They also used to offer albuterol in syrup form for kids who were severe asthmatics and that also tasted terrible. I was really prone to getting sudden severe attacks where I’d get too tight to breathe enough for a Neb or MDI to work so they’d use the syrup to get some rescue med in while we went to the hospital.
But yeah. Modern medicine is a wonder.
Joy
oh wow. My meds are slightly unpleasant/metallic tasting but they aren’t sticky. they’re safe and they work and i basically just need to remember to take them and get my prescriptions refilled.
I didn’t realize that asthma was so difficult to treat so recently. It explains how asthma used to be depicted on television.
I was around the same age, and they were an antibiotic for my fiftieth ear infection or something. I swear those things were the size of M&Ms, or at least bigger than ibuprofen.
When i was a kid I’d get throat infections yearly and had to drink down this god awful thick white liquid antibiotic. It tasted and felt like they put dry pills in a blender with paint. My parents had to do the Mary Poppins thing and shove sugar in my mouth as soon as I took it or I’d be wretching. I was so happy once i got old enough to take pills that it immediately outshone any issues with swallowing them
They didn’t exactly get away with it—Huey Lewis sued and Ray Parker quickly settled.
However! The settlement included a confidentiality agreement, and after Huey went on VH1 Behind the Music and said Ray Parker stole his song, Parker sued him for breach of confidentiality and won some money back.
Birth control pills are blessedly tiny. They were actually my first experience in successfully swallowing a pill. For the first 2 weeks they dissolved on my tongue every time before I could manage to get them down, but after a month or two I managed to swallow them most of the time. Ten years later I can swallow all but the biggest pills with no trouble but big ones are still iffy
Yeah. Taking Yaz/Yasmin was just like popping candy. I never could remember to take them at the same time every day, but I’d just put them under my tongue and let them dissolve when I did remember, which was about once a day. (Yeahh… don’t be like me when it comes to taking BC pills, folks.)
LOL same here. Ritalin can’t help ya remember if you don’t remember to take it ?
Robbie
I have to take pills at around the same time of day FOUR times a day. Also I take multiple pills at a time . I couldn’t swallow pills at all until my early 20s (I’d throw up every time I tried) and now I can swallow a little handful of them with a sip of water.
Laura
You’re a hero!
Findus
I never had issues with swallowing pills. When they’re small enough I’m usually to lazy to go and get a glass of water, and I just swallow them dry. Then recently I learned that for some medication the water isn’t just to help you swallow it but mainly to protect your stomach lining… which is also why it says in the instructions “with a glass of water”, not just with a sip…
So yeah, I’ve been doing it wrong all along.
274 thoughts on “Pills”
Ana Chronistic
Joyce, you know how to do this!
Ana Chronistic
also my experience with chewables is they’re disgusting and I’d rather swallow a thing w/o tasting it thx
anon
i would’ve thought the doctor asking ‘probing personal questions’ would tell her details about the pills/what to expect as well
Victor
My own experience with university health services doctors would suggest otherwise. That was the only time in my life I’ve ever gotten “I’m the doctor here” from any doctor.
(I had a sinus infection. My sinus infections are amoxicillin-resistant. I asked for doxycycline, and explained why. Cue above line. Three miserable days later I’m back. Fortunately she was at least capable of learning and didn’t pull that stunt again. She was still the worst doctor I’ve ever had, and I was stuck with her for four years, they wouldn’t let me switch.)
Joy
…Why didn’t they let you switch??
Taellosse
I have no specific knowledge in this case, but I will say, “never underestimate the petty unhelpfulness of professional bureaucrats.” Sometimes you’ll get one who actually sees it as their responsibility to leverage their knowledge of their organization’s systems and policies in service to the needs of outsiders needing aid, but more often any given functionary is (or chooses to behave as) a nearly-thoughtless drone who does only what they must do to avoid disciplinary action. And sometimes you’ll be confronted with someone who wields whatever measure of administrative power their position holds as a weapon, inflating their own ego by capriciously abusing others through the authority they control. Such active malice (particularly when not motivated by more specific antipathy) is pretty rare – much less common than the genuinely helpful type, and almost invisible when scattered among the great mass of disinterested drones – but it can be pretty remarkable how much misery they can generate without suffering any consequences of their own.
Librain
That’s especially egregious at a university where there’s a significantly better than average chance the person you’re treating is studying something relevant, or is in regular contact with someone who is.
It’s really not that hard to personally know a couple of Med students in uni. Or microbiology. Or Pharmacology…
Needfuldoer
I get kinda nostalgic for the flavor of Flintstones chewables, oddly enough.
The light blue Jelly Belly beans are damn close.
EquinoxTheWeird
When I take my meds, I first put some water/drinking liquid in my mouth, then push the pill between my lips, then swallow. That way, I never have to taste them.
Kazuma Taichi
my go to method to minimize tasting chance is to chuck them into my mouth as hard as I can and tilt my head back at the same time so they hopefully land beyond where I have any taste buds, and then I chug water until I can’t feel them no more
Needfuldoer
I take a swallow’s worth of water, chuck the pill in, and gulp it before my tongue knows what hit it.
Pills are bitter, but usually not that bad. More tolerable than cough syrup “cherry” and that “citrus” stuff that tasted like vomit. (Artificial grape is at least palatable, even if it’s more “allegedly grape shoe polish” than “Mott’s”.)
Paradox
I used to do this, and still do for particularly large and/or nasty tasting pills
Most of the time, I find that most pills don’t really taste like anything, or maybe I’ve just gotten used to my regular medication
Kazuma Taichi
mood
Felian
SAME.
Also, since having to take a painkillar that was bitter as heck, i’ve gotten used to a technique that encases the pill in water in my mouth, preventing it from touching my taste buds, i even do it with non-bitter pills now.
Rotunda
Yeah, I was wondering about that, but Joyce probably has some exception for when Dorothy and Becky are both watching.
Ana Chronistic
My other suggestion was hide the pills in a piece of cheese and rub her neck to get her to swallow
Needfuldoer
But that’s mixing the pill and the cheese.
True Survivor
Your memory of this comic series is frankly scary.
Clif
Indeed.
JBento
Ana exists in all times simultaneousy. For her, that strip was today. And so is this one.
Ana Chronistic
I’ll admit I slam Random every day
Carla's #2 Fan
That’s what I do for pills! For the longest time I tried with water and couldn’t do it. That’s the only way I was told how. Dry swallowing pills changed my life. So easy!
Opus the Poet
I don’t see what the problem is with taking pills, my bedtime meds total 7 pills, 6 that have to be swallowed whole and one that has to dissolve under my tongue to be effective. I take all 6 pills at once with just a little water no problem. Of course it helps I have been taking multiple pills every day since the truck hit me in 2001, so I’m used to it.
Wizard
It depends a lot on the person. My mother has been taking a variety of daily meds for years, but still has issues sometimes. (Due to an esophageal web, she has occasional issues with swallowing anything.) OTOH, I rarely have any trouble swallowing pills, even without water. Then again, my total pill intake in the past year was probably about half a dozen ibuprofen.
Inahc
my birth control actually *helped* me with pills; triquilar is the second-smallest pill I’ve ever had, and has a nice slick coating that lasts long enough for at least two attempts. getting my throat used to accepting a tiny pill every day made it easier to navigate getting the occasional larger pill down. relatively speaking.
also esophagus issues are fucking bullshit! uuuggghhhhhh I want a new esophagus, damnit. instead I’m stuck on pills that are bad for my bones (and don’t have as nice a coating as triquilar).
The Wellerman
Destiny’s child?
Sauce?
Devin
Destiny’s Child as in the group Beyoncé used to be a part of. I assume (not being all that familiar with them) that this is a reference to their song Bills, Bills, Bills.
Stu
“ALL the single dollars?”
“All the single dollars.”
“Bills, bills, bills.”
Thag Simmons
A veritable russian nesting doll of neuroses
Thag Simmons
I just realized why the show Russian Doll is called that and I have no clue how I did not immediately figure this out
JessWitt
Don’t fret; you were probably too entranced by Natasha Lyonne’s character to realize the title origin. ?
Clif
It’s neuroses all the way down.
Reltzik
CURSE YOU AND YOUR COMMENT-STEALING WAYS!
Clif
You’re welcome.
PirateTawnee
not ALL the way down surely? at some point they’ll start being oldroses if you go far enough.
Felian
LOL amazing. why can’t i upvote comments on here? 😀
DrunkenNordmann
They do move in herds.
Clif
The trouble is that replies can become isolated from what they are replying to.
I can’t work out if it’s the neuroses or Russian dolls that move in herds.
Laura
Stampeding nested kokeshi dolls for the win!
Clif
<3
Wizard
She’s fractally neurotic. The closer you look, the more you find.
darkoneko
As some point she’s gonna run out of new neurosis and invent more
Doctor_Who
Dorothy: Joyce, why are you watching What About Bob with a notebook?
Joyce: Research, I worry my routine is getting stale.
Clif
Is darkoneko being optimistic or pessimistic?
KingMonster
Yes.
ThunderNight
flintstones chewable meds
Yumi
The first time I was prescribed pills I had to swallow (antibiotics course), I couldn’t do it. I was maybe 10 at the time. I tried several times, then tried chewing it– that was gross. After that, I just pretended to take the pills each day while actually wrapping them in tissue and throwing them out. Luckily, my toe healed without issue, and everyone said I did a good job.
Clif
Not a strategy I would recommend, but I’m glad it worked for you.
Bubbletea
It is funny because I was the opposite. The doctor had to make an exception and give me pills when I was four, because liquid medication made me retch every time. (My gran’s conviction that Syrup of Fig would fix whatever ailed you was challenged by the fact I would IMMEDIATELY spew it all over the floor.)
ischemgeek
I learned to take pills at 4 because I was a brittle asthmatic and HATED the taste of theophylline syrup so much.
Theophylline is a hard core asthma med they don’t use much anymore. It’s so hazardous you need weekly blood work to make sure it’s not poisoning your heart or liver. In the 90s it came in this godawful syrup that somehow had a clingy mouth feel and was simultaneously sweet and so bitter it almost hurt. I hated that stuff so much.
They also used to offer albuterol in syrup form for kids who were severe asthmatics and that also tasted terrible. I was really prone to getting sudden severe attacks where I’d get too tight to breathe enough for a Neb or MDI to work so they’d use the syrup to get some rescue med in while we went to the hospital.
But yeah. Modern medicine is a wonder.
Joy
oh wow. My meds are slightly unpleasant/metallic tasting but they aren’t sticky. they’re safe and they work and i basically just need to remember to take them and get my prescriptions refilled.
I didn’t realize that asthma was so difficult to treat so recently. It explains how asthma used to be depicted on television.
Needfuldoer
I was around the same age, and they were an antibiotic for my fiftieth ear infection or something. I swear those things were the size of M&Ms, or at least bigger than ibuprofen.
zee
When i was a kid I’d get throat infections yearly and had to drink down this god awful thick white liquid antibiotic. It tasted and felt like they put dry pills in a blender with paint. My parents had to do the Mary Poppins thing and shove sugar in my mouth as soon as I took it or I’d be wretching. I was so happy once i got old enough to take pills that it immediately outshone any issues with swallowing them
Stephen Bierce
*plays “I Wanna New Drug” on the hacked Muzak*
The Wellerman
PERFECT LOL ?
Cholma
* substitute’s Weird Al’s “I Wanna New Duck” when no one is looking *
Laura
Here ya go:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6uEMOeDZsA
Devin
And here too!
https://youtu.be/3KvgQIBcdRk
Laura
Kind of wild how Ghostbusters just straight up stole that song, and got away with it.
Stephen Bierce
Since Huey & Co. stole from E.L.O. to make “Do You Believe In Love” I guess it was a deserving victim in Raydio’s case.
ValdVin
Some other band wrote and released the original of Do You Believe in Love. Their name escapes me. It is on Tubetube I imagine.
As a big ELO fan I’m surprised I didn’t notice the similarities at the time.
Devin
TIL!
Gandalf007
They didn’t exactly get away with it—Huey Lewis sued and Ray Parker quickly settled.
However! The settlement included a confidentiality agreement, and after Huey went on VH1 Behind the Music and said Ray Parker stole his song, Parker sued him for breach of confidentiality and won some money back.
Laura
The more you know!
Robbie
Birth control pills are blessedly tiny. They were actually my first experience in successfully swallowing a pill. For the first 2 weeks they dissolved on my tongue every time before I could manage to get them down, but after a month or two I managed to swallow them most of the time. Ten years later I can swallow all but the biggest pills with no trouble but big ones are still iffy
Laura
Yeah. Taking Yaz/Yasmin was just like popping candy. I never could remember to take them at the same time every day, but I’d just put them under my tongue and let them dissolve when I did remember, which was about once a day. (Yeahh… don’t be like me when it comes to taking BC pills, folks.)
The Wellerman
LOL same here. Ritalin can’t help ya remember if you don’t remember to take it ?
Robbie
I have to take pills at around the same time of day FOUR times a day. Also I take multiple pills at a time . I couldn’t swallow pills at all until my early 20s (I’d throw up every time I tried) and now I can swallow a little handful of them with a sip of water.
Laura
You’re a hero!
Findus
I never had issues with swallowing pills. When they’re small enough I’m usually to lazy to go and get a glass of water, and I just swallow them dry. Then recently I learned that for some medication the water isn’t just to help you swallow it but mainly to protect your stomach lining… which is also why it says in the instructions “with a glass of water”, not just with a sip…
So yeah, I’ve been doing it wrong all along.