If you have to take two big pills everyday, and after a few days they start to bother your stomach, is there any benefit to cutting them in half, (they are not time released!), and taking a half tablet four times a day?
Any chance it could make it easier on your tummy?
Thanks in advance for your opinions!
You need to call your pharmacist or doctor and ask. They would know. I’m sure it depends on the medication and what it is treating.
Pharmacists are awesome. They know everything and are always happy to help!
Big second re pharmacists! I was stung on the face twice by wasps yesterday and my eye swelled up. I thought it would be OK in a few days. My wife called the Pharm to see if there was anything I could take OTC that wouldn’t interfere with my meds. He said Take him to the doctor, NOW! I’m gonna shake his hand when this is all over.
(Plus, I got a steroid shot. I FEEL GREAT!)
What was the urgency with a wasp sting?
^ I’m guessing it sounded like I was having an allergic reaction and/or everyone seemed concerned about my vision. I wasn’t stung IN the eye, but the lids were Elephant Man grotesque.
ETA: Plus it had been 24 hours since the attack and things were not getting better.
Talk to your doctor. If your stomach can handle 1/2 a pill 4 times a day and if it’s okay with your MD, maybe what you really need is a monthly Rx for 120 50mg pills instead of 60 100mg pills.
Check before splitting pills. Some are coated to be gentler on your stomach and others are coated to pass though the stomach and be absorbed by the intestines, rather than being harmed by stomach acid. Split one of the first, and you could make the stomach irritation worse, and the second will be less effective or even completely ineffective.
These pills are antibiotics, which I must take for four more days. It wasn’t so bad the first 5 days, only mild tummy upset. But then it got worse, and most of yesterday was not pleasant. Burping, hiccups, heartburn, very mild nausea. For most of the day! Yuck. Four more days? Double yuck!
They are not time release or coated (I wish!).
I’m going to try cutting them in half and see if it helps, I’ll let you know results in a day or so? Thanks for the advice!
If you cut them in half, and they are antibiotics, you’re delivering each time half the amount of the dosage you get. The problem with that is that you want with antibiotics to reach a certain dosage level and sustain that for x amount of time. When you get your second dose, your first dose is already below efficacy level or approaching it. By halving the dose, you may potentially never reach maximum efficacy level, or may never get pass the “efficacy barrier”. Depending on the bugs, you may also be allowing more bugs to survive (because they’re not exposed to the more effective levels), which can lead to resistance.
It is possible that halving the dose and taking it more frequently would work, but again, why not ask the pharmacist if not your doctor?
Don’t split antibiotics. Instead, unless you have already been told to take the meds on an empty stomach, eat something when you take your meds. Food on your stomach should help ease any stomach discomfort. Usually, there’s a label on the bottle with this information.
I had a similar situation and I found taking an OTC acid reducer helped.
I am a pharmacist and I’ll re-iterate the above. Antibiotics are believed to work in two broad ways:
Time-contingent - As long as the antibiotic concentration at the site of action is above the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC), it’s doing it’s thing. Penicillins are usually time-contingent, so depending on the dose, splitting them and taking them four times daily may not keep the drug concentration above the MIC for long enough to do the job and you may end up with treatment failure–meaning, a second course of antibiotics and a greater chance that some bacterial resistance will have developed.
Concentration-contingent - Drugs like the “floxins” (ciprofloxacin, levofloxacin, etc) tend to work more like this. The higher the concentration the drug reaches at the site of action, the better it does at killing off bacteria, so you want to get the concentration to a reasonably high level, let it taper down to a trough level, then redose. Splitting the dose may still reach concentrations high enough to kill, but much closer to the MIC than is otherwise intended, which may result in less bacterial death/destruction/mayhem.
Either way, deviating from your prescriber’s instructions on how to take the medication may not work out well for whatever they are treating. If you know what they are treating, ask them, or your pharmacist, if there are alternative regimens that could be easily substituted, or alternative strategies (taking Augmentin with food, for example, since clavulanic acid, one of the two components is sometimes harsh on the stomach, or taking a probiotic with some, however small, efficacy two hours after dosing to attempt to replenish the “good” bacteria being killed off in your gut).
Pay attention to the medication information sheet (or the little stickers on the bottle) however, as some antibiotics are known to bind to certain minerals like iron, aluminum, calcium, and magnesium which can render them less effective, if given with something like a calcium fortified dairy product.
Drugs are dosed by half-life, so yes it can make a difference.
For gastric irritation, check with your pharmacist about taking with food. For those drugs where taking food concomitantly does not affect absorption or efficacy negatively, a little food can go a long way in ameliorating gastric distress.
Augmentin is a good example of this. The clavulanate component may have better bioavailability when taken with a meal, and the incidence of gastric distress may be lower.
I haven’t cut them in half, you’ll be pleased to know. Thank you KarlGrenze your post made me think better of my silly idea. Days 1-4, not much change but I knew it would take some time to kick in.
Days 5+6, I felt way worse. I was bummed, as you can imagine.
Spoke to a friend who explained about Herxing. Basically, as the antibiotic kills the bacteria cells they release tiny bits of endotoxins, which if there are too many for your body to handle, makes you feel kinda crap. I did have this infection a long time before consulting the Dr, so it’s probably pretty well established. She did say it will stop when the tide turns on the infection.
I’m due to get a flu shot and a hep shot on Thurs, same Dr. Sure hope I feel better by then. That’s seems like a whole lot of nasty coursing through one small body, to me. Yipes!
(I thank you all for your advice, also the learning!)