Why is it so easy to swallow food but not pills?
In: Biology
Pills are too small to trigger the swallowing reflex, so you have to swallow them manually, when you eat food you take enough of a bite to usually fill your mouth somewhat, you chew and process the food in your mouth, telling your brain that you are about to swallow food, when it hits the back of your mouth, nerves get triggered that make you want to swallow.
A pill does nothing of that, it is a small object you have to conciously swallow and it is simply not a very natural thing for us to do.
It’s all in your head. I was never told swallowing pills was hard so I never had any trouble swallowing them.
Due to the hydrophilic nature of gelatin capsules, the conditions by which capsules are swallowed has a dramatic effect.
If the throat is wet and capsules dry, they stick to the surface, same goes when the capsules are wet and throat is dry. If both surfaces are wet everything goes down easily.
Best practice is to drink a couple gulps of water to wet the throat, then place the capsules in the mouth and swish with additional water, swallow and then chase with more water.
Because it’s easier to swallow things that are chewed up mixed with our saliva but pills are like hard rocks and they taste like chemicals most of the time.
My first medication in pill form was penicillin. No one gave me any instruction. This pill had a horrible taste. I will never forget it. After failed attempts including grinding it up and putting it in applesauce, my grandfather stepped in and had me try drinking milk with meds. Thick enough to trigger the swallow reflex. I still choke if I use water.
Does nobody else do the thing where you move your tongue around in your mouth to produce enough saliva to swallow pills?
Swallowing is a three stage process, starting with chewing. You skip the chewing process with pills which makes it more challenging. You also don’t get the benefit of chewing the bolus to make it smaller when taking pills.
I’m guessing most pills are somewhat dry, while food is usually covered with saliva, making it easier to just let it slide.
I don’t know why it’s hard to swallow pills but I have a method that works every time:
-put water in mouth
-put pill in mouth
-clench teeth
-open mouth
-swallow
(Edit: formatting)
You’re doing it wrong…
If you watch people swallow pills, they tilt their head back and toss the pills in and then try to swallow with their head tilted back.
Try tilting your head back when eating and you’ll see the problem – your body isn’t designed to be able to swallow well in that position.
What you should do is toss the pills in with your head tilted back as much as necessary, then tilt it forward as much as you can, and *then* take a drink. Do that and it’s easy to swallow pills.
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