What medications can a patient with a nasogastric tube take?

Any medications that are able to be crushed or pulverized without clogging the tube are acceptable. Non-crushable medications should have a label placed on the prescription vial by a pharmacist that indicates this. In addition, most prescription (or even OTC products) with a suffix "-XR, -SR, -SA, -XL, -CD, - EC" usually indicate a specially coated or long-release form of a product that needs to be swallowed whole, and neither split or crushed. Soft Gelatin capsules like vitamin E or fish oil may be pierced by a pin and the contents placed into the tube, and this and all meds given this way need to be thoroughly flushed to be sure the whole dose was given.