Have you ever had to take a terrible tasting pill? Steroids come to mind, and they are awful. Another unwritten chapter that could have been in The Focused Fight was what to do with a child in swallowing yucky tasting medicine—including pills or liquids. Bad tasting pills can easily transfer over to adults too. There is not much to shield the bad-tasting liquid except drink lots of water afterward, but there is an excellent way to help with pills.
The recent tongue challenge with Ryan following his surgery almost a month ago included swallowing a slew of awful tasting meds once again, plus the usual cocktail of his daily pills. Due to the assault on his tongue, Ryan experienced great difficulty swallowing - even his pills.
Years ago, when I was/we were desperate for Ryan to swallow a bunch of prescription medicine and chemotherapy in pill form, I dumped out a dry "powdered" mixture that we had plenty of to spare. I then reused the capsules to pack as many pills as I could into the shell. So instead of Ryan taking 20 or so individual medications at a time, I reduced it to four or five since I could get four small pills into one capsule. I thought it was genius!
While at the pharmacy picking up Ryan's meds, I casually mentioned to the pharmacist what I was doing to alleviate all the pills Ryan had to take each day. We became good over-the-counter friends until she moved to Florida after a couple of years of being our regular pharmacist. I remember asking her if she could give me, or if I could pay for, empty capsules. My pharmacist knew what I was getting at but told me she could not do that. However, she mentioned that a company in its infancy was selling empty capsules and shared their information with me.
I was ecstatic! I was manufacturing sunshine for Ryan to reduce the number of pills he had to take every day to a handful of capsules. The company's name is: Capsuline https://capsuline.com/ *Please note I am not a representative or getting paid in any way in sharing this information.
We have used these types of capsules for years! There are no more lousy-tasting pills for Ryan or anyone in this home. I shared what I was doing with the Pediatric Advisory Boards I served on all those years ago. However, when I was writing up this blog, I investigated that they are still in business, hoping to share this knowledge with many more folks who may be taking bad-tasting pills now.
When Bill suggested I order more, I looked into our medicinal inventory. Sure enough, I still had a box of empty capsules from the Eli Lily company that is still good and worked like a charm! We had used up all the Capsuline capsules!
If you are reading this post and know of a loved one or friend taking many pills, perhaps bad tasting ones, please share because there is something easy to use to combat that bitter taste.
bSoleille!
Terri
