Get your doctor or pharmacist to OK it first. Many drugs—notably most cholesterol-lowering statins, and those to treat high blood pressure and depression—can be split without losing effectiveness or causing a negative health impact, but it can be dangerous for you to divide others.
Your doctor may have other reasons to warn you about splitting pills. Only split pills that can be divided accurately. Those with a hard coating and capsules of any kind are best swallowed whole because they can easily crumble, leak, or crack into pieces. Chemotherapy drugs and those that require stable daily blood levels, such as antiseizure medication, birth-control pills, and blood thinners, should never be split. Use the right tool.
Get a pill splitter, a small device that cuts with a sharp blade or by pressing pills between two opposing edges. Studies have found that pill splitters come closest to dividing medication into precise halves.
Your health insurer may even send you one free or here's how to find the right splitter. Never use a knife, scissors, a razor blade, a box cutter, an X-Acto knife, or any other sharp tool for the job. They can create unequal parts, and using them may increase the likelihood of an injury.
Replace a splitter when it no longer divides pills easily and accurately. Find out which one performed best in our recent test of pill splitters. Split pills one at a time. If you have any other questions, please. Good luck and take care. Taking it twice would goof things up unless your shrink or doc says otherwise. Know 4 ways to cut pill accurately. The rest u can cut because the stuff is equally all in the pill. Suzanne66 9 Sep Yes, it is possible that you may be experiencing side effects from Celexa.
This doubles the amount of medication the patient purchased, thereby saving the patient money hey, Yes its fine to cut the pills, i take 5mg from 10mg tablets, does nothing to you, but i would just think about or ask your doc if its ok to just cut your intake by half in such a short time, lexapro from what i have read can have a few bad side effects if cut out to fast, maybe take 15mg then 10 then 5 and so on?
The recommended starting dose is 20 mg or sometimes If you are …. So cut a pill just before you take it, then take the other half as your next dose. Generally speaking there would be no reason to split a 20 mg tablet of Celexa into quarters. The effective dose range is 10 to 60, I would start at 5 then work up to 10 and later to 20, I would say your doc isnt familiar with prescribing antidepressants to anxiety sufferers, some valium type meds always help to get used to a new antidepressant, but shouldnt be taken if the AD sedates you.
How to cut pills is a common question today. If you become pregnant while taking Celexa, you have some decisions to make. Talk to your OB-GYN about the risks and benefits of continuing antidepressants during your pregnancy.
There is a small risk that women who take antidepressants during their second and third trimesters could experience preterm labor. Unfortunately, women who choose to discontinue antidepressant therapy are five times more likely to have a depression relapse.
Post-partum depression is harmful to both mother and baby. Your treatment outlook will depend on a variety of factors, such as why you have decided to quit antidepressants and what symptoms you are currently experiencing. A psychiatrist can help you switch to another antidepressant, while a psychologist or therapist of another discipline can provide psychotherapy-based treatment.
Keep in mind that psychotherapy and antidepressants can both effectively treat many of the symptoms of depression and anxiety disorders. About 50 percent of people who recover from depression will have future depressive episodes.
Researchers at Harvard Medical School and other universities have found that people engaging in psychotherapy while discontinuing antidepressants are less likely to relapse than those who do not. If you or someone you love is experiencing suicidal thoughts, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline You will be connected with staff or volunteers at a crisis center near you. The people on the other end of the line will be able to listen and help you figure out what to do next. If you are hesitant to call, you may prefer to chat with a counselor.
If you are interested in finding a new psychiatrist, psychologist, or therapist in your area, there are several ways to find one. You can also call them at HELP and a knowledgeable operator will search for you. Most insurance companies have at least some mental health coverage, including state and federal plans. Although quitting Celexa may not be as easy as you thought it would be, the symptoms are often mild. Everything feels more challenging when you're dealing with depression. Get our free guide when you sign up for our newsletter.
Citalopram Celexa. National Association of Mental Illness. December Glenmullen J. Davies J, Read J. A systematic review into the incidence, severity and duration of antidepressant withdrawal effects: Are guidelines evidence-based? Addict Behav. Withdrawal symptoms after selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor discontinuation: a systematic review.
With digoxin you'd wind up with two little crumbs. He also emphasized that tablets do not contain the exact amount of medication in the two halves, a fact already well known by health officials at the Food and Drug Administration.
People who need an exact dose of their medication could fall far short because of the way a tablet is manufactured, Kellner said. Rather than patients splitting their pills at home, Kellner said he'd prefer to see an end to what he calls "predatory pricing" by pharmaceutical companies.
But researchers such as Stafford say patients need relief from the costs. Stafford acknowledges that many groups of patients are not even candidates for the practice: those with poor eyesight, severe arthritis affecting their hands, dementia or psychosis. But Stafford's analysis also revealed the dramatic sums that can be saved with drug-splitting.
He and his team assessed the costs of a Massachusetts-based health plan before wide-scale pill-splitting and what could be saved if it were endorsed. Only a few doctors in the plan encouraged the practice prior to the study and did so infrequently.
The practice can prove equally dramatic for individuals. Stafford found, for instance, that patients prescribed the milligram tablets of Zestril for congestive heart failure can realize a significant savings by buying the milligram strength and splitting the pills. Medically reviewed by Harry Croft, MD. All Rights Reserved. Site last updated November 11, Experts disagree on whether this cost-saving tactic is a safe and effective practice The cost of some medications -- many of them widely used -- can be reduced by as much as 50 percent when patients split one high-dose tablet in half to achieve the potency of the prescribed lower dose.
Kellner, however, is not a fan of pill-splitting. Related Articles. Increasing the Effectiveness of Antidepressants. The Divide Over Pill-Splitting.
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