The liquid gels are so profoundly better than the other types of pills that I've stopped purchasing any other brands or kinds of ibuprofen forever. Liquigels are the GOAT
I do powders for headache medicine. When I want that to work, I want it working yesterday. Dissolve in like 4 ounces of water, drink, and go lay down in a dark room.
Also, yes the OP of this thread is correct; the sweetener added to the capsules for all branded Advils are really nice, and the coating they put on all their pills allows for smoother swallowing (so smooth that I normally don't take them with water anymore). Literally nothing comes close this these fucking amazing pills they make.
I'm in the process of slowly replacing my screwed-up teeth, and ten minutes means a lot when you're in pain. I haven't had the liquigels in a very long time, but I'd consider buying them for the faster response time.
As a child I was raised in a household of chewable Tylenol tablets. Those were the only pills I really knew, particularly for mild pain relief.
In gradeschool, I had a day where I developed a splitting headache. I was sent to the ""nurse"", who, by nature of this being a small town American public school, was just the school office secretary armed with a bottle of child dose Advil tablets. I was promptly given a couple tablets to take, and was shooed off to the drinking fountain. Instinctively, I chewed the tablets. Within minutes, they came back to see me, along with my breakfast, and I was quickly sent home. The valuable lesson I took away from that day was, "chewables are for babies, grown-up pills are swallowed whole".
Growing older, I became accustomed to increasingly annoying pills, which only further cemented that lesson. The culmination was probably being forced to swallow huge capsule pills while having a throat swollen and raw with strep. I just accepted that "real" pills are swallowed whole, and they suck, and that's just how it is.
Much later in life, I was visiting my parents while recovering from a pub crawl. My mom offered me some Tums to combat some heartburn I was having. Somehow I made it far enough into life to drink alcohol but not know what antacids were. I was handed two US silver dollar sized tablets. Flashing back to my previous mistake when taking unknown pills, I swallowed them whole. I was embarassed to learn after the fact that they are, in fact, meant to be chewed.
The morals of this story:
I apparently have no problem swallowing any pill or tablet.
I take Advil Cold and Sinus to help me breathe. LOL, the brand name certainly has a sweet coating vs. the generic! No difference in effect, and it's not like I'm chewing it up first.