I just got multivitamins at Trader Joes, based on their "actual capsule size" graphic.

Their graphic lies! I should bring the bottle back to them and show them.

Thankfully, of all the Problems I Have, this ain't One Of Them. I can swallow gobstopper-sized pills dry, even if they taste like burnt alfalfa.

I got some multivitamins from Whole Foods that turned out to be too huge to swallow easily. Then I found out there were gummy vitamins for adults. Not as potent, but I can take them more often.

Gummy prenatal vitamins are making me a better mother, because I could not have swallowed those monsters that the doctor prescribed.

I feel much less like a spoiled little kid about the gummy vitamins I take now, because I'm not the adult in the world who just can't stand having to swallow the equivalent of big pieces of chalk every morning. They make me gag.

Many of my pills are quite large, and after taking them daily, I have learned how to swallow them by the handful, dry if need be but that is rarely necessary.

Yeah it's funny. I've always been able to swallow large and sundry pills. Those plastic packets you get at the checkout counter with a dozen or so tablets? All at once, no problem. The wife on the other hand has this system where she has to drink water before and after each separate pill.

Sometimes I have to chew the horse pill supplements.

The one time I tried to swallow a large pill without any water, it felt like there was a gigantic ulcer in my esophagus for the next ten days. Won't ever try that again.

Like Ardiril and Splunge I can swallow handfuls of pills at once. Yay for multiple conditions. : /

I can normally swallow multiple pills at once as well, but these are huge capsules filled with powder and constructed in such a way as to make me nervous that they'd fall apart super-easily, in which case I'd have a mouth- or throat-full of unpleasant-smelling powder.

Handfuls of gigantic pills, no problem. These liquid vitamins, on the other hand, which I took for the longest time, now pretty much are guaranteed to come right back up. Which is really a shame, because they absorb so much better, taste good and are pretty damn pricey.

I've been having to give pills to a cat every day for the last three weeks, and he feels your pain. You'd think I was trying to force a dish sponge down his throat, the way he acts.

While we're talking about pills: I was always told by my mother that you should take pills with water and for some reason in my brain this is now Really Important, and when mr alto takes pills dry it really freaks me out (especially things like NSAIDs which I am convinced will eat his stomach lining). Am I right to be so freaked or should I just calm down and chalk it up to a weird upbringing?

Terrible pill swallower going way back here. My mother mixed crushed aspirin and water on a spoon, which I promptly threw up on her feet. If only every pill was like Advil gel caps. Easiest pills in the world to swallow, even for a whimp like me. No taste, too. That's key. And juice/soda, not water. Nurses in the hospital were very understanding getting me juice (oddly, on morphine, I could swallow any pill, with water even).

When I have to swallow horse pills, I try to remind myself that I swallow bites of food much bigger than any pill. Sometimes it helps. Grape soda's good too. Strong taste and the bubbles are a nice distraction.

I take A Lot Of Pills everyday, including some truly huge vitamins and fish oil capsules that if taken wrong will make me barf up all the more important pills I took first, so I have a time-tested method of taking pills so as not to gag on them.

1) One pill at a time, placed on the back part of the tongue.
2) Very large sip of water taken as fast as possible after placing pill on tongue.
3) Most important pills swallowed first, so pill taking can be aborted midway through if pukiness seems imminent.
4) This is the most important thing, and it seems crazy but it totally works. Fill up the cup of water between pills, so that sips of water are always taken from a totally full glass. Learning this trick has totally allowed me to go from vitamin-hater to a three multi-vitamin, two fish oil a day habit. Vitamins are awesome!

alto, I have also been told by medical professionals that NSAIDS really need to be washed down with water; something about them (and not all pills) will eat up your esophagus if stuck. (The point would be to get them down into the stomach, though, so Mr. Alto's stomach lining is probably ok. Freak out about his throat instead.)

I've heard vitamins in pill form aren't absorbed very well. I go for the gummies myself. (They make them for adults now. : )

Fish oil capsules are the worst!

I've been having to give pills to a cat every day for the last three weeks, and he feels your pain. You'd think I was trying to force a dish sponge down his throat, the way he acts.

Nice picture painted there! Made me LOL. Have you tried Pill Pockets, BP? Some cats will scarf them up, some don't (my four give mixed reviews).