Question about crushing pills?

I've seen a lot of posts lately about people being advised to crush their pills.  I'm not suggesting than anyone should not follow their doctors' advice about how to take meds, but I don't really understand the point of crushing meds, especially for more than the first couple of weeks.

Most people say they are told it's to prevent pills from getting stuck.  I assume they mean stuck in the stoma.  I understand that in the first few weeks, the stoma can be pretty swollen and so maybe a pill, especially a large one, wouldn't fit through it.  But since most pills are designed to dissolve quickly and easily in a warm wet environment like our digestive system, even if a pill did get stuck in the stoma, wouldn't it just dissolve pretty quickly and then go on through?

Someone else recently posted that they were told they had to crush pills, except for very small pills, so that the pills wouldn't get caught in the sutures.  But sutures are usually very small, so how would a large pill get suck in the sutures?  It seems to me that a tiny pill would be more likely to get stuck than a big one.  But again, since pills are made to dissolve quickly and easily, even if one did somehow get stuck in a suture, wouldn't it just dissolve and soon not be stuck there anymore?

Am I missing something?  Is there some reason I am not understanding for needing to crush pills?

What were you told about crushing meds by your surgeon?

By the way, I was swallowing pills whole in the hospital about 12 hours after my surgery.  I never had any trouble.

I am pre- op, but I did ask my surgeon about this since I do take 1 pill twice a day. He said that as long as I could tolerate it, I could swallow a pill the size of a Tylenol. Everything else, he said, "may" have to be halved.

I had my surgery 4 months ago.  I was too was told that for the first 6 months I was to crush all my pills.  I would crush them, put them in applesauce, or pudding and gag it down.  Everyday I would dread that whole ritual.  I decided on my own about a month ago that I was going to start swallowing them whole.  I have had no problem doing this.  I told my nutritionist and she was ok with my decision.  I just couldn't take the gagging everyday. Not sure why my surgeon had me crush them, I figured everyone had to do this....wrong.

We were told to crush anything larger than an M&M. I think the concern is the 1st few weeks is that if your pill gets stuck that you'll vomit your medication up.  

I think I would have been more likely to vomit it up if I'd tried to cru**** due to the terrible taste.

I had to crush mine or get liquid form for 2 weeks, I THOUGHT I WOULD DIE!!, it  was so nasty, really don't remember what his thinking was but I also   stopped at just over a week post because every time it hit my throat it came back up, guess I was no help to you then huh!! LOL, Denise

I have the same questions.  I can understand doing it for a week or two for pills with a coating or for larger pills, but it makes no sense for pills that have no coating and dissolve in less than a minute (I once dropped one of my Coumadin tablets on the counter where there was just a little bit of water, and just in the amount of time it took me to retrieve it, it had already started to dissolve!).

The alleged reason regarding the sutures makes no logical sense.  Anyone who has seen the videos on YouTube can clearly see that the areas that are stapled have nowhere for a pill (or even a seed) to get lodged where the pouch was formed.  There are at least three ways of forming the stoma that I have seen videos of, and regardless of whether the surgeon uses staples for that or sutures, there is still no place for a pill to get lodged.  The sutures are extremely close together and the staples are identical in design (just sometimes smaller) than those used for the main pouch.  

So the only place a pill could get stuck is the stoma, and the only time it could stuck is when the stoma is swollen, so it seems pretty unnecessary for people to suffer through crushing pills into food for more than a month (let alone SIX months!).

I honestly think this is something that some surgeons don't truly give much consideration to, since it doesn't cause them any grief to just arbitrarily mandate that someone else crush pills and try to choke them down.  Someone at the informational session I was at for my surgeon asked her about needing to change meds and crush meds post-op, and she said that as long as it was the size of an M&M or smaller and the patient was able to drink an ounce of water at a time there was no need to cru****  Even larger pills she simply instructed us to cut in half (when allowed) rather than crush.  Otherwise, we were allowed to swallow everything the day after surgery.

Lora

I was swallowing pills in the hospital...and they were NOT small pills!!!  I don't understand the "crushed pills" rule either.  I have never had a problem swallowing pills, whole.  I would have more trouble getting a crushed pill down...yuck! 

I have cared for many patients that come to the ER with esophageal burns from crushed pills, that are intended to dissolve in your stomach or small intestine, and become lodged on the esophagus.

If you are crushing, make sure you are taking them with plenty of water not hot liquids, because they will start to dissolve in your mouth and esophagus.

Obviously not all meds are caustic to tissue but can still cause irritation and discomfort.

OR----  make you barf !!

 

I hadn't even thought of that.  So in some cases, taking crushed pills can actually cause problems.  I mean, other than making you barf.