Advice for swallowing pills

If you have trouble swallowing pills, a group of German experts is ready to show you a better way. Two ways, in fact.

Researchers at the University of Heidelberg know that pills pose a problem for patients. Among those who have trouble taking drugs, about a third end up gagging, choking, vomiting, or blocking their throats with pills.

The solution from the German experts was "the pop-bottle method." That involves putting a tablet on the tongue and closing one's lips around the opening of a flexible plastic water bottle. Then take a drink, "keeping contact between the bottle and your lips by pursing your lips and using a sucking motion," the study indicated. By swallowing water and pill right away, there's no chance to think twice - the drug slides right down the hatch.

It worked. About two-thirds of those who had trouble swallowing tablets reported improvement by using the pop-bottle method.

For capsules the Germans suggested the "lean-forward technique." Put a capsule on your tongue and take a sip of water but don't swallow it immediately. Instead, "bend the head forward by tilting your chin slightly toward your chest." Then, keeping the head in this downward position, swallow the capsule and water. Both were tested by 151 volunteers and now are being shared in the Annals of Family Medicine. - Los Angeles Times