Posted by europerep on January 16, 2015, at 15:21:41
Hey all, and hopefully also hey Ed ;-)...
It's been a while since I last posted, but I wanted to briefly ask a question that others here may have already looked into as well.
For about two or three years now, I've been taking amitriptyline and nortriptyline, and I'm doing much better now than before.
But I only really got to the point where I am now by deciding to abandon the conventional doses that those drugs are supplied in, and make my own customized doses. The dose intervals of 25mg (for extended release) or 10mg (for immediate release) are, in my experience, far too wide. I notice clear differences in my mood by adding or taking away a single milligram of active ingredient. I don't really want to start a debate about med sensitivity, I just see the drastic improvement I have experienced recently and I must be doing something right. (And if this is a placebo effect, then well, as long as it works I won't complain.)
For amitriptyline, making customized doses is relatively easy by using capsules filled with beads or pellets and simply counting them. But I do want to slightly fiddle with my nortriptyline now, and here it gets tricky. As far as I know, there is no nortriptyline extended release available anywhere, and the product I get here is a simply white pill, described in the marketing authorization as follows: "Other ingredients consist of pharmaceutical excipients lactose monohydrate, maize starch and magnesium stearate."
I have halved pills before without a problem, but what I want to do is to go from 10mg to something like 9mg. Is it possible to simply cut off a bit of the pill at the side, or is the active ingredient concentrated somewhere in the "core" so that this will have either no effect or make doses with little reproduceability? I do have a fine scale I could use to verify the weight if that helps, but it's of course not an analytical scale. (It measures single milligrams with a reproduceability of +/- 2mg.)
I'm sorry if this post is a bit incoherent, I'm in a hurry and I had meant to post this question for a couple of days now, so I just wanted to go ahead and post. I'd appreciate any input or experiences. Of course I know that noone here can give me a definite answer, but I'd already be happy with "it might work so it's worth a try".
If more specific information is needed, that's not a problem, just let me know.
Thanks!
ER
poster:europerep
thread:1075154
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20150102/msgs/1075154.html