Extended Release Medication

Factual Questions
1

Hello Again,
I am currently taking 60mg Morphine XR for chronic pain. I am wondering if anyone here knows how extended release medication works. I realize that there is a coating on the meds that dissolve slowly, but what I am wondering is:

1: When you are taking a 60mg dose, does that mean that over the course of 12 hours (the time the meds are supposed to last) you are at a constant 60mg or is 60mg the total amount of the drug released over 12 hours?

2: If it is the former, does that mean that the single pill has an amount greater than 60mg in it. Meaning does it release 60mg hour one, than another 60mg hour 2 and so on? If it has to release a full amount periodically then it would stand to reason that the one 60mg tablet contains much more than 60mg. I would assume that a immediate release tablet that is labled 60mg would contain exactly that, 60mg.

Thanks for solving yet another of life mysteries.

2

It’s got 60 mg of morphine in the whole pill. That 60 mg is slowly absorbed by your system so that its analgesic effects last approximately 12 hours.

For immediate release preparations, the total amount is absorbed into your system much more rapidly, giving analgesic effects for much shorter periods, from 90 minutes to 4 hours.

Each person’s individual response will vary, depending on the state of their liver, the speed of their digestive system, the other drugs in their system, the degree of tolerance they’ve developed to opioids, and a myriad of other factors.