After Your Operation

Can I break calcium pills in half?

Parathyroid patients take calcium pills afterwards

The calcium pills we want you to use are Citracal + D. We have lots more information on the type of calcium in the Green “Before Your Operation” section of the app and in the Blue “After Your Operation” section of the app.

Horse Pills!

Yes, calcium pills tend to be pretty big, and yes you can break them in half. It is OK to crush the calcium pills and put into a cup of water, or put into apple sauce or yogurt. After the first two weeks, we don’t really care what type of calcium you take, but you should still take at least 1000 mg of calcium per day to help your bones recover some density and strength.

Citracal has “petite” pills which are smaller than the regular ones, but they have less calcium in each pill. You need to take 3 petite pills for every 2 regular pills you take.

We prefer you take the jumbo pills

We prefer that you take the standard Citracal tables for the first two weeks after the parathyroid operation. Our instructions are written this way. After the first two weeks, you can take generic calcium citrate, or take the “petite” smaller size calcium. Just look at the label and note that if we told you to take TWO regular strength Citracal, you will need to take THREE petite versions.

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