Tips for Pill Gaggers (like me)

So, I’m not sure when it happened, but shortly after I started feeling the benefits of doTERRA’s Life Long Vitality Vitamins, I realized that I was having a difficult time swallowing them. They don’t have any synthetics to hold them together to form a nice neat little pill so as a result there are, multiple pills to take. My conundrum: I was committed to taking them, even though that meant I would have to take 8 big capsules and 4 smaller ones a day (not including the Terrazyme or other supplements I would soon be taking) but was NOT loving the unattractive, borderline traumatizing, 5 minutes it took me to gag them all down. At all.

I am a dedicated woman so once I committed to taking them, well, damn it, I was going to do it. But it wasn’t pretty. It was like those capsules had a supercharged magnetic force and uvula glue that immediately attracted them straight back to the back of my throat where they would stick… and consequently, make me gag. Every. Time. I found myself thinking, “Tracy, if you are going to be a front line endorser/supporter of these vitamins, how are you going to successfully endorse these vitamins if you gag every time?” That’s like a Victoria’s Secret underwear model picking a wedgie as she walks the runway, right? I had to find an acceptable way to get these vitamins down more easily.

I tried taking them one at a time. But, krikey, I’d be there until lunch time… who has time for that? I tried a suggested “upside-down trick” to swallowing pills… which resulted in me still gagging…only upside down. I then decided to put on my RN hat. For patients who have trouble swallowing, we often crush (not all but certain) pills and put them in applesauce or pudding. Because neither pudding nor applesauce were/are not a part of my morning routine, that method wasn’t going to work for me but it did spark my “a-HA!” moment. I decided to try putting them in my morning shake!!

Every morning I start my day with a smoothie/shake. I look forward to it, it fills me up AND I can open all 8+ of my capsules, dump them in and I don’t taste any weirdness! Voila! It worked like a charm!

But my story does not end there because I feel the need to warn you of an epic fail (aka: “Don’TERRA) option.

My smoothie plan was flawless…until I ran out of either shake mix or no-fat chocolate almond milk. So, of course, once I had the shake system down, guess what happened? One morning I opened the refrigerator door and to my horror, I had run out of chocolate almond milk. So I was back to square one. Would I revert back to the gagging my way through them or try something different? I will go to extremes to not gag, so I chose the latter.

So, what else could I add it to? Not orange juice. (it doesn’t mix in well) Not water. (it doesn’t mix well either) So, what the heck…why not make scrambled eggs and add it to them? They’re liquid (-ish) too. Genius!

So I went out to my garden and harvested a few cherry tomatoes and grabbed the left over spinach and opened up the capsules and mixed them up with my eggs. The pill contents kinda just floated on top of the eggs, no matter how much I beat them with my fork. So, I put a top on the little glass container I was using and tried shaking them… they looked a little better. I threw them in the frying pan and added the spinach and tomatoes.

Did you see the picture? If it was meant to capture a pan of scrambled Hamburg it would’ve looked great. But no people. Those were scrambled eggs. They are SUPPOSED to be YELLOW! But whatever, right? I’m sure they’ll taste fine. Wrong again. Yuck. 🤢

I ate them all because, well it was about the principle at that point. But, in the end, if I were to do it again, I’ll pull on my big girl pants and opt for the 5 minute gagging routine. It’s worth it to feel at my best all day. 😊