Unkosher medicine

There is a medicine made of seaweed that’s called Arthryl Go, which relieves knee pain. It’s a powder that you dissolve in water and drink. It’s not tasty.

Dear …, I wish you a full and speedy recovery!

If this medicine is bitter to the point of being not fit for human consumption, and especially if it’s repulsive, you may take it in any case. If it is fit for human consumption, although not tasty, and you are only taking it for pain relief and not because of any danger to life, then you are only allowed to take it on the condition that most of the powder is kosher. (You can contact the company that produces this medicine and ask them, what percentage of actual seaweed it contains.)

In any case, you can use medicines in capsules to relieve pain. If you can’t get this medicine in a capsule, you can buy empty capsules in a pharmacy. But you do have to ask the company if this medicine will have the desired effect if taken in a capsule.

Shulchan Oruch, section Yore Dea, ch. 103, §2