question about my gemini scale

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i am not anywhere near needing to be able to weigh this small amount but noticed on my scale when i just put small crumbs on it ..it stayed at 0.000..so i got a small piece out and it weighed .009gm not sure what that would be in mgs..but then i went to .25mg which would be 1/4 of a mg and the weight on the gm scale would need to be 0.25mg = 0.00025000g so if the scale only weighs out 3 spots behind the decimal do i have to get a different scale to do a small amount..cause i know there are people using a scale and weighing lower than that..thanks for any info..and does the gemini pro weigh out anymore than the regular gemini??

 

deep

 

[Guest [ba...]]

0.25 mg of medicine will weigh much more than 0.25 mg.  Most of the pill is 'inert ingredients'.  What is the dose and weight of one of your intact pills?

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they average .170 and i want to taper all the weigh down from the 2mg pill due to filler changes and have never had my body have to adjust to any other fillers..so how do people go so low with their scale like to .0625 on a gm scale when the gemini only goes 0.000 so i am just wondering how you weigh when you get lower..and since the 1mg scales weigh the same approx .170 wouldnt you still need and extra 0 to be able to get really low..so some say they crush it up and weigh out the powder when they get low..how is that possible with the gemini scale..just thinking ahead cause a scale that has 0.00000 on it on ebay they start at like 3000.00 and way above my price range..so not sure what decisions i will have to make...i am only at .136gm 2times a day right now so along ways to go before i need to address this but would like to have the knowledge so i know ahead of time.

 

thanks

 

deep

 

 

[Guest [ba...]]

If a 2 mg pill weighs 170 mg (0.170 grams), then 0.0625 mg of medicine would weigh 5.3 mg (0.0053 g).  Basically, take the amount of medicine you want to take and multiply it by 85 to get the weight of the pill fragment that you'd use.

 

You should easily be able to weigh 5 mg of pill (0.0053g of medicine) on your current balance.

 

Hope this helps.

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my question would be if it should weigh .0625 how do you weigh it if your scale only has 3 digits behind the decimal..would it weigh .063?..just wondering how they weigh their med so little when the gemini only has 3 spots behind the decimal...

 

thanks for responding

 

deep

[Guest [ba...]]

There's no reason to weigh sub-milligrams weights of your pills.  You can weigh down to 2-3 milligrams pretty accurately using the scale that you have.  That's equivalent to around 30 micrograms of medicine (mere vapors).  Most people jump before that (e.g. at 50-100 micrograms or higher).  You'll easily be able to weigh 50 micrograms of medicine since that much medicine in pill form will weigh 4-ish milligrams (.004g).

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Hi Deep,  This is a little off the point, but I just wanted to alert you to something about your current setup using a 2mg K pill.  Your scale can at best measure .001g and 2mg of K weighs .170g.  Skipping the math details this means that each .001g on the scale is .0118mg of K.  That may not seem like a big number, but it is equivalent to .235mg Valium.  And in all likelihood the scale is not actually able to measure to .001g, so your dose will vary even more than that.

 

I'm not a big fan of scales at all, but I think it would be a good idea to use the smallest pill possible to get your accuracy up.  I think this is much more important than pill filler consistency.  For example, a .5mg pill of the same weight will increase your accuracy by 4x.  It may not matter much right now, so no need to panic, but it will matter more and more as you go down.

 

I hope I didn't butt in, but I really feel using a 2mg K pill with a scale may cause avoidable problems.

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thanks SG57..and the lowest i could get my scale to read with crumbs i had been shaving was .009 and i know i have taken them off and my scale went down less than that...so i know no scale that any of us use can be 100 % accurate i was just hoping to be able to use the 2mg only because of my phobias of meds and some have had some problems with brand changes and fillers...so i will have that fear to overcome..and no its not something that i would have to worry about til i got to like 2 mg a day where i could just take 2 1mg tabs a day and then start tapering..an my insurance will only cover 90 tabs a month no matter what mg they are so at the moment i couldnt do the 1mg cause i would need 120 a month..my doc doesnt have a problem writing the script he said whenever i want to change the mg just tell him..so thanks again for your input and congrats on getting off the same mg of k that i started at..lets me know it is possible

 

deep

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Have you considered using full fat whole milk?  Then you could stay with your same 2mg pill and divide it accurately.  That's another option that will allow you to not change pills.

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it seems so confusing when i have read about titrating and making sure about the amount ..and how much milk is in a dose..i dont drink milk ..i drink either almond or coconut cause for some reason it doesnt agree with me like if i used it on cereal and cant eat ice cream..but i can have foods made with milk like mashed potatoes and cottage cheese so i dont think i am lactos intolerent not sure what it is..and dont you have to keep it cold..cause i am not home sometimes 3 nights a week due to auctions..but it does interest me..but would want to make sure i could do it right and not mess it up..and it would be the same thing as taking the pill with water its just dissolved in milk..and i know you dont have to do that til your low in the dose per day..as i am still at 3.25mg a day..so a long ways to go..i am willing to try anything ..but how do you make sure that it stays the right dosage in the syringe? or is it the same as taking a liquid med from a pharmacy?

 

thanks for any input

 

deep

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Yeah, there's definitely pros and cons to weigh.  But a big pro is that it is a great way to dose K.  I'm not sure almond or coconut would work.  I know regular whole milk does.  It does need to be kept cold and it is liquid so can spill, etc.  Milk doesn't agree with a lot of people and that's a problem.  It's the fat that makes it work.  K is soluble in fat.  So I bet there are many other options beside milk, but who wants to be a guinea pig and test other fatty liquids?  Kind of a catch 22.  It is just like taking a liquid med made at the pharmacy.  I would not worry about the syringes being confusing.  Everybody gets put off by that at first, then they find out it becomes second nature quickly.

 

Another way to do this using your own pills would be to use Ora Plus suspension liquid.  Just another idea.  That stuff seems to work well.