#829 – Face

I couldn’t swallow pills for the longest time. My brain just couldn’t figure out what order to do things without choking. Then 10 or 12 years ago something clicked and it was suddenly easy. Then a month or so ago Amanda bought some vitamins for me to take. I might not have had a problem with them except she said to me “I hope you’ll be able to swallow these!” Now I have to retrain myself all over again.

Tags:

41 thoughts on “#829 – Face”

  1. mkcompy says:

    Heh, sadly I couldn’t take pills until like 15 or 16 years old… I was so scared to do it for fear that I’d choke on them or puke or whatever. I can take smallish pills now, but large ones (particularly oval shaped ones) cause me problems.

  2. SoySauce says:

    At least that thing isn’t a suppository. He’d never manage the courage then.

  3. PsychoDuck says:

    I think you may need a bit more water to wash this one down. There’s a hose in the yard.

    The Duck Has Spoken.

  4. MaskedMan says:

    I think he needs to put a rocket on this pill – really get it up to speed before it hits hit throat…

  5. Space Butler says:

    This seems like a bad decision I would make. Neglect continual chores for a long time and have to make it all up at once when it has accumalated to ridiculous proportions.

  6. Stephen says:

    I remember exactly how and when I stopped having trouble taking pills. My mother gave me this monstrosity to swallow and turned around to do something while I gave it a go. I gave it my best try and it went down, but not without causing my throat to make a sound not unlike the death rattle of someone who just lost their jugular. My mother, legitimately scared that I had died, turned around slowly. I said, somewhat weakly, “It went down.” I was about 13 at the time and have never had a problem with pills since.

  7. Earlobe Grey says:

    Just be glad it’s not a suppository.

    I figured out that I could trick myself into thinking a pill was food by pretending to chew and moving my jaw without biting down on it. If you can swallow a mouthful of food, why not a tiny little pill?

  8. TCC says:

    I don’t remember having trouble with pills, but I know I hated and STILL hate to. theres always a long suspence filled wait after pouring whilst I stair down the bitter tonic just dreading the taste to come… seriously though, niquil is sick…

  9. Fishy says:

    When I take a pill, I put it in my mouth, then put water in my mouth, and then I stare blankly as I wait for the opportune moment to swallow. My girlfriend thinks this is very funny :p

  10. Nilly says:

    I occasionally have issues with swallowing pills, especially larger ones, but I take a huge gulp of water, pop in the pill and shake my head around so that the pill won’t stick to my tongue. (I hate that..) The first really horse-like pill I’ve ever taken is that allergy medication, Allegra; I HATED IT. DX I’ve taken it twice within the past few years and it is absolutely abhorrent to take.

  11. Jackson says:

    I had a similar story to yours, Chris. Up until my mid-teens, I absolutely couldn’t swallow pills. One day I had a monster headache and decided I was going to swallow an ibuprofen come hell or high water. I got an enormous glass of water, put the pill in my mouth, and just started chugging until the pill went down–and it worked. That was the first and last time I had to use the brute force method to swallow pills.

    I am inferring from today’s comic that Biff can unhinge his jaws like a snake.

  12. Jeanette says:

    I’m perfectly fine with taking pills (better than agonizing cramps) although the gel-cap ibuprofen pills can be really terrible if they get lodged in your throat.

  13. Felix says:

    I can’t take the pills you can taste. I need plastic shells.
    THEY TASTE LIKE CARDBOARD.
    I should know, i ate som,e cardboard when i was younger.

  14. silversaraph says:

    You need to totally blend it in a blendtec blender. Then what, I don’t know.

  15. MaskedMan says:

    @silversaraph;
    Will it blend? Who knows; it won’t fit!

    As for swallowing pills, I can dry-swallow ‘most any pill – from tiny asprin to horse-choaking megapills. The only ones that give me trouble are the gel-coated ones. Those tend to soften up just enough to stick about halfway down. 😛

  16. starseedjenny says:

    I can’t swallow pills. Never been able to. Not even the tiny little pain pills. When I had to take antibiotics after getting teeth pulled, I had to open up the things and put them in a small tuna salad I’d make every day just to be able to get it down.

  17. Ziggy Stardust says:

    I can pop pills dry if I tilt my head back. I just kind of relax my throat and swallow, it is not hard.

  18. Ms.Amelia says:

    I simply cannot swallow pills for some reason. I have to chew some food (usually a few crackers) then stick the pill in the the chewed food, then swallow. That sounds kinda gross, but it’s the only way :p

  19. Zach Light says:

    *mouth hangs open*…..*twitch* i’m with you biff, I hate pills…

  20. speakerblast says:

    I still can’t swallow any pills. Not even tylenol with the special coating. Sadly I have terrible terrible allergies, but allergy pills are the smallest pills ever, so I can get them down.

  21. This one reminds me of an episode of The A-Team, where Murdock was going “health nut”, and at the end, B.A. gave him a pill about the size of his fist…and he swallowed it.

    Add to that the fact that this comic is titled “Face”…

  22. Wyrem says:

    I’ve never had issues with pills but then again I started getting headaches when I was 8 and whatnot and started with Tylenol and Aspirin and whatever. Then they got worse and if I didn’t want to have to go to the emergency room for a pain shot every week while experiencing a Migraine, pills were the way to go. I currently take somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 pills per day for various reasons.

  23. weerd2normal says:

    i have always hated pills, i particuarly hate gel caplettes, they just get stuck you your teeth, or they fall apart and you have choking-ly gnasty powder in your mouth.

  24. Mophtran says:

    Farnsworth: Good news, everyone! I’ve created a years-worth vitamin. Even better news, it’s a suppository!

  25. Night Mare says:

    I just learned to swallow pills a couple days ago.

  26. ThatSomethingGuy says:

    I used to have trouble swallowing pills. Oddly, it was my younger brother who let me in on the best way to go.

    1) Take a mouthful of whatever liquid is on hand and hold it there. 2) Drop the pills into your mouth. 3) Swallow the lot.

    Yeah, you do feel like you look a bit odd, with your mouth open and your head back, but it works. Unless I’m taking multiple pills at once (something I can do now), it just feels like a very odd way of drinking.

  27. sco3tt says:

    He should dissolve it in the hot tub and just soak it up that way.

    It just occurred to me, swallowing a vitamin like that would sure make your eyebrows grow like MAD for about 36 hours. Now we know where they came from.

  28. JSW says:

    I dry swallow pills, takes too long to get a glass of whatever.

  29. Hershey says:

    I was afraid of taking pills until I was about seven. I had to take these huge purple pills because I still wet myself sometimes back then [ my parents still don’t believe my explanation ] and for some reason the doctor believed stool softner would help. After my mother threatened to take away the TV, I put the pill in the back of my mouth, sipped just enough soda for it to go down, and just as I was about to announce my achievement it got caught. For a moment, I was scared to death, and chugged the rest of my soda. It went down. I had to go to the bathroom though. Even now, in fear of choking, I have to drink a whole glass of soda to get my pills down.

  30. Jess says:

    I have to take pills, I can’t keep liquid medicine down, seems to run in my family as my brother can’t either…luckly I’ve never had problems with swallowing pills…

  31. Nicoli20 says:

    Sometimes, after I take my 2 pills, my throat sometimes feels like I lodged one in my wind pipe for like half and hour. Nothing I do can make it go away.

    Also, I just learned what suppository means…does anyone know how to unlearn things besides amnesia? PLEASE!

  32. @Nicoli20: yeah, just tell your ten closest friends about suppositories. That should get it out of your mind, and you certainly won’t remember it from all the repetition!

    I dry-swallow pills too. It has to do with enough saliva, so just work up a bit and then toss the pill back.

  33. Linzleh says:

    Biff’s mega-vit should cover him for all the headaches, shakes and chills he’s had to deal with this week…chug and glug

  34. Eleanor says:

    Nicoli: Surf Urbandictionary for a bit. It makes you forget all about what you were trying to forget.. Of course it generally makes it worse afterwards…

    I’ve never had much trouble swallowing pills (taking piriton since I was like 7) but I once had to take these dirty great things the size of my first thumb joint. That worked fine, but every time I take a paracetamol it feels like it goes down sideways.

  35. Rainel says:

    I’ve never really had too much trouble swallowing pills myself, but then I’ve had to take pain killer since I was about 6. I do, however, have to gulp down a glass of iced tea (can’t seem to take them with water) in order to do so. The idea of swallowing pills dry scares me… I would be too scared I would choke or something.

  36. C4Pottery says:

    I’ve had to take pills to sleep since third grade. No problems, ever. I can swallow ice cubes and dumplings whole too, so pills pose no threat. Ice cubes are really refreshing in the summer, but they have to be the long curved ones from the automatic dispensers or the flat ones from restaurants. it’s cold all the way down.

  37. Marr965 says:

    Pills… Brrr… I used not to be able to take pills. I have no idea how I do it, so I hope that this won’t have untrained me. On the subject of suppositories… My aunt has coeliac disease (where your body starts attacking its own gut), so I might have to have a suppository to check whether I’ve got coeliac.

  38. Sherri says:

    Everyone who can’t swallow pills… buy a few things of tic tacs and practice. It took me a few weeks but I finally learned to at the age of 20. Try once at a time though, and then give yourself a break. You have to be relaxed or it won’t work. Try doing it immediately after eating, too.
    Take a sip of water, swallow that, then stick the tic tac in and another sip of water. Don’t worry about swallowing it immediately, that’ll tense you up. Let it sit there (toward the back, but again, don’t try too hard) until you feel like trying. Once you manage it once it will happen again, if not every time. Then it’s just practice.

  39. Crystal says:

    I am so good at it I can often do it without a drink regardless about size of pills. (The standard saliva is generally enough to get things moving and once it’s past my airway I’m fine so long as I don’t do a headstand)

  40. kIKi THE kitty says:

    you can do it we believe in you!

  41. DaemonThanatos says:

    Um…wouldn’t that be a suppository?

Leave a Reply to TCC Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *