Why am I having so much trouble swallowing pills?

Question

Mostly like ibuprofen and excedrin. I tend to get headaches and thats what I use. I switched to excedrin when ibuprofen didnt do anything anymore. Anyway, I had never before had trouble swallowing any of the pills before. Now I can not seem to swallow them without trouble. I use to be able to just use water, but now i need to use something thicker be it juice or milk, just something thick. This just starting happening, I'd say within the last 3 months. But before that I had no trouble swallowing them whatsoever, and now I just can't figure out why I have so much trouble as of now.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

dont know how many more people will see this, but Im 19, and I dont have any neurological problems, nor have had any in the past, and the tablets havent changed size except between the ibuprofean, but i had the trouble before i switched. And I seem to get headaches about once a week. No allergies.

Thanks for all your help.

Answer 1

You don't say how old you are, or if you have any neurological problems.
Generally, when people change the size of the tablets they take, they need a bit more neural stimulation to swallow. The thicker the liquid and the larger the bolus, the more neural stimulation is available to trigger the swallow.
A few suggestions:
It is safe to cut Excedrin with a pill-cutter into smaller pieces.
You can put a tablet or capsule into what is called a "transit medium", such as applesauce or pudding. This method is best if you have pills that can't be crushed or cut.
Position yourself with your chin down toward your chest. This makes the pharynx (throat) wider. Putting your head back makes it narrower, thus harder to swallow.
You need to suck hard to transport the bolus through your mouth toward your throat. You can also use a straw with thin liquids if you position yourself properly.

Answer 2

The very best thing that you can do here is to talk with your pharmacist and ask for suggestions. Some meds must be taken whole, while others can be split and still others can be crushed. But which meds are which is something that most parents can't reasonably be expected to know and something that most doctors don't know either. That's because pharmacists are the health care workers who specialize in meds. Asking your doctor could be very much akin to asking your ophthalmologist about a GI problem - it's just not their specialty. However, if your doctor prescribed something in liquid form, then no matter how horrid your child finds the taste to be, you can hide the taste by numbing the taste buds. That's simple to do. Have your child hold an ice cube or ice chips in their mouth for a few seconds before administering the medicine and then again immediately after administering the medicine. It works far better than the Mary Poppins musical solution - "A Spoonful of Sugar". If your doctor didn't prescribe a med in liquid form, ask your pharmacist if that med is available as a liquid. If so, your pharmacist can contact your doctor's office and request approval for that change. I learned all of this from my father, who was a pharmacist.

Answer 3

I have trouble swallowing pills too. Have you ever had one kind of get stuck in the back of your throat? That's happened to me a couple of times, and it made it harder to swallow pills afterwards because my body was physical resisting it since it was unpleasant last time. I don't know, that's the only reason I can think of.

The only thing I know of to do about it is to take chewable pills when you can. There's not a chewable form of Excedrin since it has aspirin in it so it's not safe for kids, but Tylenol and Motrin you can get the children's chewable ones and just figure out how many you need to take to get a full adult dose (for instance, junior strenght Motrin is 100 mg, and a normal adult tablet is 200 mg, so if you take two normal ones you'd take four junior strength ones).

It might be worth talking to your doctor about in case there's something that's swollen or something that's causing problems as then it might be correctable. Everything I can think of either you would have been born with or it would have caused other symptoms besides just not being able to swallow pills, but I'm not a doctor.

Answer 4

You need to see a dr. If you need a referral, see your PCP/PMD first, but if you don't make an apt with a gastroenterologist (GI) dr. What you are having is called dysphagia. That just means trouble swallowing. If you had pain with it, it would be called odynophagia. NSAIDS like the pills you are taking are notorious for causing an increase in the amount of acid refluxed up the esophagus. SOmetimes the pills get stuck in the esophagus and form and ulcer. Any pills that get down after that may just collect in the ulcer crater or may increase the amount of acid from the stomach which may aggravate the ulcer.

The speech pathologist and the otehr people had some good suggestions, but I would also try taking prilosec twice a day for a week and see if that helps, as well as avoiding nsaids for now.(take tylenol for now.) Definitely don't take NSAIDS before you lay down. Don't eat late at night and sleep on several pillows for the time being. Avoid spicy, tomato, citrus, fried foods for the time being. see your doctor. They may give you a prescription for a PPI (which is what Prilosec is) and perhaps some other temporary meds to get ride of the immediate irritation. They may want to do a endoscopy (EGD) to see if you have acid reflux and a bacteria called H. pylori which would be further aggravating/creating ulcers.

Answer 5

It's probably your gag reflex or maybe the pills aren't coated. When I have problems swallowing pills, I take them with my meal and they go down with no problems. Just be careful as some medications are supposed to be used on an empty stomach

Answer 6

Tending on how many head-aches you get in a month it could be your Gag Reflexes Or if you've got seasonal alergees the run down of snot in the bad of your throat could contribute

Answer 7

your throat could be swollen and you don't know. get your throat checked out by someone.
Maybe your brain forgot how to do it. it happens to me. like sometimes i forget how to write a English for a couple minutes. it isn't uncommon. just think what you are doing or get checked out by a doctor.

Answer 8

gag reflex...