Variation in weight of tablets

[[al...]]

Hi all.  I've been tapering using a jewelers scale at a rate of 5% every two weeks.  I am tapering off  Valium 20 mg. My RX is for two 10mg tablets.  I've been just dry cutting one of the tablets to make a 5% cut from the whole.  However I've noticed that not all the whole tablets  are the same weight.  Therefore this is probably screwing up how much of the drug I'm actually getting and throwing off my 5% reductions ... Right? 

Anyone else run into this issue and if so were you able to solve it?

Thanks in advance for any replies

[[mi...]]

Everyone says something different but in my opinion each pill has the same concentration level of the drug per mg of pill weight. It only makes sense since they make these in large batches. When the pill weighs more I imagine it is from variations in the pills being made so in effect not all 10mg pills are exactly 10mg. There’s no way for them to know the exact amount of active ingredient in each pill, how would they measure that? All they would be able to tell is the batch formula they use. So when the pills are pressed there’s probably a slight variation in the “batter” that gets solidified into each pill. So when you weigh your pill and get it to the most accurate weight you can I’d imagine it’s the same amount of API every time. That’s just my thinking but others will say differently. 

[[al...]]

So are you saying each pill has 10mg  of Valium in it, but weighs differently because of fillers or such?

[[Hu...]]

6 hours ago, [[a...] said:

So are you saying each pill has 10mg  of Valium in it, but weighs differently because of fillers or such?

Exactly. I was fighting with the scale, at a certain point cutting Ativan was so difficult. If I were you, I would just ask for 5 and 2 mg V tabs and liquid taper the last mgs

Edited November 5, 2023 by [Hu...]

[Guest [...]]

11 hours ago, [[a...] said:

So are you saying each pill has 10mg  of Valium in it, but weighs differently because of fillers or such?

What @[mi...] is saying is that when the batch is mixed (both API and filler), the API is dispersed evenly throughout the mixture, which means that the variations in tablet weights (not API weight) dictates whether  there is slightly more or less API in each tablet. If this is the case, which is a theory I also subscribe to, then the only time it may matter is when you are taking the whole tablet. Example; If I’m dosing 2mg’s valium and my average 2mg tablet weighs 0.172mg (which it does), then I would either use a tablet that weighs 0.172 or if I didn’t have a tablet that weighed 0.172mg, but I did have a tablet that weighed 0.180, then I would shave that tablet to 0.172, discard the shavings and dose the remaining 0.172mg. If I had a tablet that weighs 0.163, then I would wait until my daily dose was down to, or below 0.163 before using it to dose or shave. 

I hope that made some sense. 

Often members will weigh 10 tablets together, and using a calculator, divide the total weight by 10 to find the average tablet weight. They would then use that average weight as their guide their taper using scales. 
 

@[Hu...] is correct. 

It would serve your dose accuracy considerably by using lower potency tablets.

Let’s just assume the pharmaceutical companies were allowed a 10% leeway in dose…. then, a 10mg valium tablet could have anywhere up to 11mg API and anywhere down to 9mg API depending on the scale weight of the tablet. 

[[al...]]

Thanks for the replies.  Makes a lot of sense