Splitting Pills

[Chris]

Anyone else have issues doing this successfully? I can *never* seem to get the damn things right down the middle and the score-lines the manufacturers put on are no help at all. The particular pills I'm on are a bit too strong even when split accurately in two. I really need a dose of between 35 and 40% of a whole pill which comes out at about 0.9mg. I have found pill-splitters to be totally useless. The only viable solution I can think of is to dissolve a whole tablet (2.5mg) in 100ml of distilled water in a graduated cylinder, then syphoning off 35-40ml with a needle-less syringe. I'd like your feedback and observations before I try this, though. AIUI, water does not attack the active ingredient in question (diazepam) but light *does* so provided I keep the fractions in light-tight bottles for not too long I should be alright, provided I haven't overlooked anything. Have I?

[Jeff Layman]

Instead of tablets, get your doctor to prescribe Diazepam 2 mg/5 ml Oral Suspension. It's available sugar-free or with sugar if you prefer.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Chris explained on 17/06/2018 :

How about a mortar and pestle, to powder the pills, then split the powder by eye into 5 portions. Take 3 (=30%), or 4 (=40%).

Another way, might be to crush as above, then use a pair of those scales that druggies use, to measure the dose accurately. The scales are less than a tenner a pair from China.

[Nightjar]

They are. I use a scalpel and do it by eye. However, I only need the pills split in half. I wouldn't like to try thirds that way.

[Tim Streater]

I just use a knife with a decent blade to split mine. The ones I have to split have a groove in the top so its easy.

[Chris]

Eyeballing is surprisingly inaccurate! I have tried it and it doesn't work anything like well enough.

Yup. Got one of those that states it's good down to 1 mg. They are pretty amazing for the price, but are out of their depth at such sub- featherweights. You have to bear in mind that 2.5mg of these tablets is not 2.5mg of diazepam; most of the weight in a pill comes from the inert bulking agents they use.

[tabbypurr]

Those little chinese scales are great, but be aware that typically their ac curacy is nearly 10x worse than their displayed resolution.

Also I have encountered one set of scales that had several scales (units), most of which were a complete mystery as to their identity. And one was nea r enough to grams to be confused for grams, resulting in wrong measurements . Ans it gave no useful indication of what scale it was on. A single old we ight is good to check them with. Or a piece of A4, if you know its gsm you can calculate its weight.

Diazepam OTOH - meh, I can't think of anything I'd be willing to take that for.

NT

[Harry Bloomfield]

I bought some and a set of calibrated weights. Mine were on the nose throughout there range.

[tabbypurr]

Right. My current 200g one is good to 1% FSD, but measuring tiny increments it's less good at.

NT

[Cursitor Doom]

For this sort of purpose, you will ideally need one of these:

Regular porcelain types will result in too much loss which you certainly can't afford when you're talking such tiny amounts.

[Graham.]

Some? A pair? As those little digital scales seem to use four strain gauges, perhaps we pedants should refer to them as "two pairs of scales".

[FMurtz]

The score lines work, just put the tablet on the table score line up and press both sides of the score line down (saw nurse doing it)

[Brian Gaff]

No. I am in a bit of a fix just now. The pills I am on are the lowest dose of a blood pressure pill, but one a day has side effects like dizzy spells and pins and needles in the hands. So ideally my doctor would like to make the dose smaller over a longer time. This is not possible as splitting the tabled, which are small does not guarantee half the dose in any case. Bah humbug. Brian

[Bob Martin]

Your local pharmacy will sell you a pill splitter for a couple of quid.

[Nightjar]

I use a scalpel because that is what I've got. A good craft knife should do just as well. I got lots of practice when I had a cat with asthma. I had to cut prednisolone pills about 2.5mm in diameter into four, with no markings to guide me.

[FMurtz]

Which often do not work,I have tried 5 so far, maybe I am not paying enough.

[tabbypurr]

Or maybe they're junk. The one I saw had a moulded plastic blade!

NT

[whisky-dave]

Couldn't you just crush the pill into a powder, then using something like a mirror and credit card, arange it into equal lenght/width lines and using a rolled up fiver ........

[AnthonyL]

A few years ago I mentioned to a couple of friends that I took low dosage aspirin by breaking up a 300mg tablet into 4 or 5. They both immediately looked at me in horror - one was a Chemist, the other was a medical Doctor. They explained that there was no way of knowing the the medical dose was evenly spread across the aspirin which contained other elements to help with binding and stomach protection etc.

I then resolved to dissolve the aspirin and use a small portion of that each day.

hth

[Chris]

Even if this were to come out perfectly, it would still result in what for me would be two overdoses (I'm only requiring 30-40% of a full tablet).