Senokot
 

I can't swallow tablets, and unfortunately Senokot are tablets. I sort of crumbled them up a bit and ate them with yogurt, will they still work? They're not sugar coated or anything.

and also in chocolate flavour granules! (if they haven't discontinued it).

Just realised that looks like i'm joking....i'm really not, u can seriously get them - if that helps any?

Ooh thanks.

There is an easy way to tell if pills are able to be crushed and still work properly. Anything in a capsule or gel cap need to be swollowed whole. If it's a pill, if it is crushable it'll have a score mark across it, like a little indented line.



AD

matt has the same trouble so he takes a mouthful of water and before he swallows it, he tips his head back and sticks the pill in, shakes his head to 'mix' and swallows.

After a hard knackering day at work i can take 2 paracetamol and 2 ibuprofen at the same time, that's 4 tablets, i just swallow.

Not always - Adderall XR is a capsule and that can be opened and sprinkled on food (or at least on applesauce, and I would assume other things as well).

And probably things that come in a liquid or chewable form would be okay to crush, right?

Ok, I'll restate, anything that is a capsule or gel cap needs to be swollowed whole unless it is specifically stated that it can be broken open. :)

Wait a second....XR as in Extended release? Not to question you, but are you totally sure? usually the extended release forumulas are the ones that you can't crush or break up becuase in order for the extended release part to work they have to be digested properly.


I think it depends on if the liquid or chewable formulas are the exact same as the tablet. Some medications work properly becuase of how they are digested. I would say as a general rule that you shouldn't break up any pill that doesn't have a score mark on it. If it is available in chewable or liquid formula you should try that before you start crushing pills.

you can get senekot in liquid,or you could try fibogel(though its suposed to taste not so nice),theres also exlax,which comes like a mini bar of chocolate so you just break a little square off and take one-though it doesnt taste that nice.

That works :)

Yep, definitely extended release. It's one of their main marketing things since other extended release meds have to be swallowed whole, and a lot of kids have trouble swallowing pills. It's in some sort of crystals or something inside the capsule, so if you actually look at one of the pills, half the case is see-through, and there are little beads inside instead of powder or whatever. I think the case probably just dissolves right away (it reminds me of the case on those animal sponge things I used to get when I was little), and it's the little beads that make it be extended release, so then if you put them on apple sauce or something that doesn't really need to be chewed anyway, then it ends up the same. They specifically say it can be sprinkled on applesauce (rather than food in general), so I'm guessing that the beads aren't supposed to be chewed.

Is it enough for the active ingredients to be exactly the same, or are there other things that could make a difference that wouldn't be listed? Or what about something like Motrin where the Junior Strength "caplets" are scored but the regular ones aren't? I think the reason for that is just that one of the doses for the junior ones has half a pill, whereas for the regular ones it's always whole pills so there would be no reason to cut them in half. It doesn't really matter since I could just get the chewable ones anyway, and they'd taste a lot better, but I'm just curious...

Hmmm....thats interesting with the extended release forumla. You're probably right that they specificcally formulated it for applesauce or a very similar food item. I remember those spongy animals you are talking about, and my guess is that the medication that is the extended release is kinda in a pill within a pill so that it gets delivered at the right time, does that make sense?


I don't quite understand what you are saying in the last bit there, but from what I understand, it is a medication manufacturing protocol (in the US at least) that scored tablets can be broken, and unscored tablets can not.

What I mean about the last part is...
scored caplets: http://www.motrin.com/page.jhtml?id=...c=availability
not scored caplets: http://www.motrin.com/page.jhtml?id=...c=availability
I think the only difference between the two besides that one's scored and the other is not is that the first one has half the dose of the second one since it's intended for kids. And the second one's orange, but I can't imagine that would make a difference. So it doesn't make sense to me that the second one can't be broken while the first one can, even though the first one is scored and the second is not.

The adult caplets are covered in a coating. My guess is that the chidrens tabs are scored becuase children need more perscise dosing then adults. Say a 6 year old may get 1/2 of motrin, a 10 year old may get a whole one. Does that make sense?

Yeah, that's why I thought they were scored (one of the doses is 2 and 1/2 caplets). But the original thing was that if there was some reason I wanted to crush an adult caplet instead of just taking two of the kids chewable ones, that would be safe wouldn't it? I think all the coating does is make it easier to swallow doesn't it? So if the kids ones are scored, then they're safe to break, and since the adult ones are the same, then it should be safe to break those too, right? Not that there would be any reason to since they make chewable ones anyway, but it just seems like being unscored doesn't always mean it's not safe to break them.