Dear Customer Relations – The World's Best Funny Complaint Letters Send in your funny complaints!!

Ibuprofen Liquid Capsules: Easy to Swallow?

 

The story told in this latest letter is actually completely true.  I should have sued the riding school.

Customer Relations Department

Superdrug Stores plc

118 Beddington Lane
Croydon
Surrey
CR0 4TB

 

Dear Customer Relations,

Superdrug Ibuprofen 200mg Liquid Capsules

 

Twenty years ago, a very big horse ran up my back at full gallop. 

My wife and I had been riding in the forests of the Morvan National Park in France - and very nice it was too.  Nice that is until our mounts were spooked by a snake and we were both thrown out of our saddles.  The big problem for me was that I was riding in the front.  As a result, milliseconds after the pain of hitting the rocky ground at high speed, my wife’s horse ran straight over me at a velocity Red Rum would have been proud of.  Unfortunately, one of its thundering hind hooves struck me squarely on my upper back, just inside my right shoulder blade.  After that, the pain of the fall seemed utterly insignificant.

For some time afterwards, my Quasimodo impersonation was flawless.  My hump was the size of a small French village and my right arm hung limp and useless at my side.  I wouldn’t have been able to stand or lie straight if you had run over me with a steamroller. Gradually though, the pain and the swelling subsided, I eventually resumed an upright stance and life returned to normal.

Nonetheless, to this day, there is an area of damaged tissue in my shoulder – roughly the size of a horses hoof.  Once in a while, it seems to flare up for no apparent reason and I develop an acute neuritis, causing excruciating referred pain down my arm and pins and needles in my right hand. 

So, to finally get to the point of my letter, this is exactly what happened a few weeks ago.

It was the weekend and I was unable to see my GP straight away so you can imagine my relief when my wife handed me a box of Superdrug 200mg Ibuprofen Liquid Capsules.  Just the job I thought.  A painkiller and an anti-inflammatory.  Perfect.  What’s more, they were fast-acting and (best of all) “easy-to-swallow”!

At least that’s what it said on the box.

Easy to swallow?  I suspect that it would have been easier to swallow the horse!

I know the capsules aren’t exactly tiny but I have certainly swallowed bigger tablets without difficulty (indeed, the 400mg ibuprofen tablets that I was eventually prescribed were much bigger than your capsules and looked like shocking-pink flying saucers but they slid down my throat like a good oyster).

No, size isn’t the issue, nor, I suspect, is the egg shape of the capsule.  It is the gel of which the capsule is made that is the problem.  It seems to react with saliva to form a highly efficient adhesive which firmly glues the capsule to the throat, just below the point where you can cough it back up again.  No amount of drinking will dislodge the little blighter.  The only way to get the capsule down far enough to do the ‘fast-acting’ bit is to eat - without chewing excessively so there are lots of ‘bits’ to dislodge the glued-on capsule.  Salted peanuts work very well, I eventually discovered.

This all seemed like an awful lot of trouble to swallow an “easy-to-swallow” capsule.  In fact, bearing in mind its shape, texture and general squishiness, it occurred to me that it may actually be a great deal easier to introduce the capsule into the gastro-intestinal tract from completely the opposite end!  A quick dab of Vaseline and hey presto!

So before I buy a pair of rubber gloves, I thought I’d ask: Would they be just as effective as a fast-acting, “easy-to-shove-up-your-bum” suppository?

Yours faithfully,

Anthony