Using a scale to weigh and measure doses

August 3, 2023

I always made up two or three weeks' worth at a time and had no problems. I traveled quite extensively during the last 18 months of my taper, and it was so much more convenient to just take along some capsules instead of all the gear needed to make up the doses.

August 18, 2023

On 7/28/2023 at 11:15 PM, brassmonkey said:

The Gemini-20 and clones tend to have an error range of 2-3mgpw. Unfortunately, without spending thousands of dollars that's as good as we can get. In general, it is best to weigh once and move on. Reweighing and reweighing the same sample will just lead to frustration.

Thank you @brassmonkey for replying! And sorry for my delay in answering.
In the end I had two scales: Trendfield (Dutch) and Gemini-20. In the end I decided for the Trendfield, cause the Gemini keeps getting 'off' with the calibrationweights. It should be 10mg each, but is shows 9.997 of 10.004 or 10.002.
And exactly dose last numbers are important for me dosing 0,039mg. So I felt I couldn't rely on the Gemini.

I just use is sometimes to check if the Trendfield seems of for a minute (then I usually give it a break, and after everything seems fine again).

And in the end I have to go for a farma-suspension of selfmade water-option, because the dosage get's to small to weigh properly.

November 18, 2023

PLEASE HELP!

I'm currently at 1.7mg of Cipralex (Lexapro) and am cutting pills and using a weight scale. It is becoming much harder now as I decrease below 2mg. My one scale seems to be measuring it properly, but I'm no longer sure. I also have a gemini as a back up. I don't no if I should keep going with the hard pill cutting and weight scale option, or if I should be switching to a liquid taper. I am very sensitive to small changes and so I am very scared of changing to a liquid taper. I am also very confused about how to even do a liquid taper. I don't have access to a pharmacy liquid form of the drug, and I can't seem to find any instructions for how to make a homemade liquid solution. I'm not scientific in the least, and the whole thing terrifies me. The info I've found about homemade liquid solutions is very confusing. I've reached out to BrassMonkey by message, and so am hopeful he will provide some good advice and recommendations. I would also benefit, however, from hearing from others who are liquid tapering CIPRALEX (LEXAPRO).

Thank you!

November 19, 2023

@SkyStreamer are you certain you can't get it compounded?

November 20, 2023

@SkyStreamer

I measure 100 ml of water with a scale and a sealable beacher. I dissolve my 10 mg Lexapro in this water. I take 6.2 ml of this solution every day using a 10 ml glas syringe. This is corresponds top my current Lexapro dose of 0.62 ml.

November 23, 2023

On 11/20/2023 at 3:35 AM, Memphisto said:

@SkyStreamer

I measure 100 ml of water with a scale and a sealable beacher. I dissolve my 10 mg Lexapro in this water. I take 6.2 ml of this solution every day using a 10 ml glas syringe. This is corresponds top my current Lexapro dose of 0.62 ml.

Hey @Memphisto, how do you get it to be soluable? I was looking on here and couldnt find anything

January 5

The Gemini 20 balance is not available on Amazon. Is there another balance you advise me please?

January 12

On 1/5/2024 at 7:28 AM, BillDz said:

The Gemini 20 balance is not available on Amazon. Is there another balance you advise me please?

https://www.amazon.com/uxcell-Calibration-Precision-Digital-Balance/dp/B07YFYKJH5

January 13

Hi All, Im looking to purchase a scale to be able to measure my medication accurately. My mom said something about having to purchase "weights for calibration" - is this something thats needed? Does anyone know what shes talking about? Theres a bit of a language barrier between us so its hard to understand.

Thank you!

January 13

I found them on Amazon.com

Searching from the SW area of the U.S.A.

Searched for: Gemini 20 scale

Try this:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=gemini+20+scale&crid=IDBAMJWOWAAO&sprefix=%2Caps%2C1304&ref=nb_sb_ss_recent_1_0_recent

(yours took me to calibration weights only??, and I'll have to double check this again once I sign out)

@YachtRock, @Greenowala

Greenowala, they come with calibration weights. Read this whole topic to glean if you do want to do weighing.

Do searches on topics, to find and then post on an existing topic, OR post in your Introduction.

It did seem to come up, even after I signed out. The Gem 20 scale at Amazon.com. Hope the link holds up. YachtRock. You want one that measures to .001 gram(g) or 1 mg. Thanks for your experienced assist with Greenowala too, as you are working with vortioxetine too! Super. You're a good peer.

Edited January 13 by manymoretodays

January 13

Anyone knows the average pill weight of a Trintellix pill? I'm wondering if buying a scale would help.

January 13

28 minutes ago, meehai said:

Anyone knows the average pill weight of a Trintellix pill? I'm wondering if buying a scale would help.

It's different for every brand of the same medication. There is no consistent weight due to the different fillers and coatings each manufacturer will use. The only way to find out is to weigh them yourself and calculate an average. Each time you change brand you will have to recalculate the average.

Edited January 13 by Erimus

January 13

1 hour ago, Erimus said:

It's different for every brand of the same medication. There is no consistent weight due to the different fillers and coatings each manufacturer will use. The only way to find out is to weigh them yourself and calculate an average. Each time you change brand you will have to recalculate the average.

I'm asking if it's at least 50mg or something that can be scaled to at least 2.5 mg of active substance.

January 14

2 hours ago, meehai said:

Anyone knows the average pill weight of a Trintellix pill? I'm wondering if buying a scale would help.

153mg was the average I used in my calculation. They are near the bottom of page 1 on my intro thread if you want to see the math.

January 14

20 hours ago, YachtRock said:

153mg was the average I used in my calculation. They are near the bottom of page 1 on my intro thread if you want to see the math.

Bless you 🙏

January 16

On 1/14/2024 at 2:22 AM, YachtRock said:

153mg was the average I used in my calculation. They are near the bottom of page 1 on my intro thread if you want to see the math.

Do you think I should crush my pill to help spread the active ingredient more evenly?

I'm quite reticent about this, because I don't wanna break more pills at once in case it doesn't work. And also I don't have a pill crusher.

I'm worried about residue and losing powder/dropping it.

I'm not sure how to fill capsules as they're pretty small and I would definitely drop powder around

So my question is, is it okay for start to just cut a tiny bit from the pill, weight it, then take it?

January 16

35 minutes ago, meehai said:

So my question is, is it okay for start to just cut a tiny bit from the pill, weight it, then take it?

That's how I do it! Well, to be more precise, if I do hit the right weight on a pill I'll stash it for a busy day in my backpack pill case in case I'm out and about during a med time, then take a combination of fragments that equal the dose when at home. Crushing it into a powder, from my experience taking a bunch of small fragments/powder, can lead to a "med dump" where it hits all at once and it's way too intense.

38 minutes ago, meehai said:

I'm not sure how to fill capsules as they're pretty small and I would definitely drop powder around

Filling capsules is way too tough for me, I switched to a liquid version of the med I was trying that with. Each dose is much quicker/easier to measure with liquid, but now I'm toting around ice packs when I go anywhere to keep it cold. Tapering has drawbacks no matter what method you try!

January 16

55 minutes ago, littlebird said:

That's how I do it! Well, to be more precise, if I do hit the right weight on a pill I'll stash it for a busy day in my backpack pill case in case I'm out and about during a med time, then take a combination of fragments that equal the dose when at home. Crushing it into a powder, from my experience taking a bunch of small fragments/powder, can lead to a "med dump" where it hits all at once and it's way too intense.

Filling capsules is way too tough for me, I switched to a liquid version of the med I was trying that with. Each dose is much quicker/easier to measure with liquid, but now I'm toting around ice packs when I go anywhere to keep it cold. Tapering has drawbacks no matter what method you try!

Thank you! I will try the first method too. I find liquid tapering messing me up too much. As of now, being at a high dose, I should be able to use the scale. Might switch later on to liquid when scale becomes too hard.

🤗🤗

January 17

1 hour ago, meehai said:

I find liquid tapering messing me up too much.

That liquid hits like a ton of bricks! Speaking of which, gabapentin brick time. ⌚🤣

January 17

On 1/14/2024 at 2:22 AM, YachtRock said:

153mg was the average I used in my calculation. They are near the bottom of page 1 on my intro thread if you want to see the math.

Scale arrived, first weight was exactly 153 😆

February 3

On 11/14/2011 at 5:28 AM, Altostrata said:

Another reasonably priced digital scale that measures milligrams is the Grobet Precision Pocket Scale 10g x .001g Model 50.303, for about $55 here. I don't know how accurate or easy to use it might be. It's for weighing precious stones.

The link to Grobet Precision Pocket Scale isn't working. Does any one know the correct link?

February 3

On 1/5/2024 at 8:58 PM, BillDz said:

The Gemini 20 balance is not available on Amazon. Is there another balance you advise me please?

Try https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0012TDNAM

February 4

GEM 20 by Smart Weight has worked well for me until I dropped it on the floor. Even after the drop, it still works but auto shuts off randomly and I have to restart and reweigh and then the weight might be off by ~0.001mg to 0.004mg compared to the previous weigh.

Now, I am ordering a Gemini 20.

https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B00ESHDGO

February 7

Hi there;

Can I grind the tablets with an electric coffee grinder? Will the heat from grinding not be able to alter the active ingredient?

Thanks.

February 16

Am I using the scale wrong?

I have a 75 mg pill of BUPROPION HCL.

The scale it showing it as 0.450 grams.

Shouldn't it be 0.750 grams?

I got this scale: Smart Weigh GEM20-20g x 0.001 grams, High Precision Digital Milligram Jewelry Scale, Reloading, Jewelry and Gems Scale, Calibration Weights and Tweezers Included https://a.co/d/gHg5SXj

February 16

I calibrated it prior to using it.

February 16

17 minutes ago, elizabethann said:

Am I using the scale wrong?

I have a 75 mg pill of BUPROPION HCL.

The scale it showing it as 0.450 grams.

Shouldn't it be 0.750 grams?

I got this scale: Smart Weigh GEM20-20g x 0.001 grams, High Precision Digital Milligram Jewelry Scale, Reloading, Jewelry and Gems Scale, Calibration Weights and Tweezers Included https://a.co/d/gHg5SXj

Well not using the scale wrong, but thinking about it wrong. Just because the pill contains 75 milligrams of the "drug" does not mean the pill should weigh 75 milligrams. Your pill weighs 450 milligrams, which likely consists of 75mg (0.075) of drug and 375mg of "filler". The acronym "mgai" refers to "milligrams active ingredient". So assuming the drug is equally distributed along with the filler (unlikely but what other choice do we have) and you wanted to drop your "dosage" by 10%, you would crush the pill and weigh out 0.405 which is 90% of the total weight of the pill.

Rather than reinvent the wheel, I will point you to the SA bible on the topic from @brassmonkey:

February 16

On 2/7/2024 at 6:58 AM, BillDz said:

Hi there;

Can I grind the tablets with an electric coffee grinder? Will the heat from grinding not be able to alter the active ingredient?

Thanks.

I don't know the answer but I don't recommend it. This is what I bought/used: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07D3X37L8

February 16

@elizabethann see if this post helps clarify it for you. I realize I just linked you to the first page of the very same thread.

February 20

Hi folks, I am trying to reinstate to curb withdrawals from a TFT (pre-learning about SA and hyperbolic taper) as I'm in a very stressful time in my life - getting married, preparing to move states this summer.

I bought the Gemini 20, the pill grinder @YachtRock linked above, and 00 veggie capsules. The issue i'm finding as I try and prepare capsules for reinstatement is with the scale not being sensitive enough, as many of you have mentioned, and I'm wondering if I'm doing more harm than good.

I crushed one 25 mg Sertraline pill (average weight of all the pills in the bottle was 0.077g), and by the time I got the powder out of the canister and into the small circular tray I had ~.065g. I added a 10g weight to the tray with the powder to hopefully increase the scale's sensitivity, and as I'm trying to reinstate with only 1mg I tried to ballpark around .003g into each capsule. Definitely spilled some of the powder, and there is no way these are perfectly accurate but it seemed to be the best I could do.

I'm wondering though if this is more harm than good, and if I should just try the route of dissolving a 25 mg Sertraline pill in a certain amount of ml of water and then do the syringe route. I've attached a photo of the chart I got from the SA thread with my info. I made 7, 1mg capsules, out of the ~.065g of powder from my 25mg pill, spilled some, and tossed the rest so I'm worried I might have put too much in each of them because the scale wasn't sensitive enough. 🤷‍♀️

Any insight or advice is greatly appreciated as I've read a lot on this site and this is still hella intimidating!

February 20

24 minutes ago, ThisIsthestart said:

I crushed one 25 mg Sertraline pill (average weight of all the pills in the bottle was 0.077g), and by the time I got the powder out of the canister and into the small circular tray I had ~.065g. I added a 10g weight to the tray with the powder to hopefully increase the scale's sensitivity, and as I'm trying to reinstate with only 1mg I tried to ballpark around .003g into each capsule. Definitely spilled some of the powder, and there is no way these are perfectly accurate but it seemed to be the best I could do.

I'm wondering though if this is more harm than good, and if I should just try the route of dissolving a 25 mg Sertraline pill in a certain amount of ml of water and then do the syringe route. I've attached a photo of the chart I got from the SA thread with my info. I made 7, 1mg capsules, out of the ~.065g of powder from my 25mg pill, spilled some, and tossed the rest so I'm worried I might have put too much in each of them because the scale wasn't sensitive enough. 🤷‍♀️

77mg pill weight seems incredibly low to me? My trintellix 5mg pills were small and they weighed 153mg, about twice of yours? Are they truly that small/light? I think your calculations are correct, but I will say that measuring out 0.003 grams on that scale seemed futile to me. I ended up giving up when it got that low. I started at 0.015g and noticed when I got to around 0.005g (7-8 month later) it felt like a rounding error. I stopped the reinstatement after a year. My "jumping off" dose was 5mg and I reinstated at 1/10th of that. No clue if that was too little, or if any of it ever mattered physiologically. But maybe you should try a target "dose" of 2.5mg, also 10%? Might be easier to weigh. Sorry, I can't speak for any liquid dilution techniques.

Also FWIW, I researched Psilocybin dosing quite a bit and spoke to the Spirit Pharmacist about this, he agreed that I should make sure that all the SSRI was clear of my system before doing the microdosing regiment (or anything stronger in fact).

February 20

1 hour ago, YachtRock said:

77mg pill weight seems incredibly low to me? My trintellix 5mg pills were small and they weighed 153mg, about twice of yours? Are they truly that small/light? I think your calculations are correct, but I will say that measuring out 0.003 grams on that scale seemed futile to me. I ended up giving up when it got that low. I started at 0.015g and noticed when I got to around 0.005g (7-8 month later) it felt like a rounding error. I stopped the reinstatement after a year. My "jumping off" dose was 5mg and I reinstated at 1/10th of that. No clue if that was too little, or if any of it ever mattered physiologically. But maybe you should try a target "dose" of 2.5mg, also 10%? Might be easier to weigh. Sorry, I can't speak for any liquid dilution techniques.

Also FWIW, I researched Psilocybin dosing quite a bit and spoke to the Spirit Pharmacist about this, he agreed that I should make sure that all the SSRI was clear of my system before doing the microdosing regiment (or anything stronger in fact).

My 50mgai sertraline pills weigh 0.1588g on average, so it adds up that 25mgai would be around 0.079gpw

February 20

2 hours ago, ThisIsthestart said:

Hi folks, I am trying to reinstate to curb withdrawals from a TFT (pre-learning about SA and hyperbolic taper) as I'm in a very stressful time in my life - getting married, preparing to move states this summer.

I bought the Gemini 20, the pill grinder @YachtRock linked above, and 00 veggie capsules. The issue i'm finding as I try and prepare capsules for reinstatement is with the scale not being sensitive enough, as many of you have mentioned, and I'm wondering if I'm doing more harm than good.

I crushed one 25 mg Sertraline pill (average weight of all the pills in the bottle was 0.077g), and by the time I got the powder out of the canister and into the small circular tray I had ~.065g. I added a 10g weight to the tray with the powder to hopefully increase the scale's sensitivity, and as I'm trying to reinstate with only 1mg I tried to ballpark around .003g into each capsule. Definitely spilled some of the powder, and there is no way these are perfectly accurate but it seemed to be the best I could do.

I'm wondering though if this is more harm than good, and if I should just try the route of dissolving a 25 mg Sertraline pill in a certain amount of ml of water and then do the syringe route. I've attached a photo of the chart I got from the SA thread with my info. I made 7, 1mg capsules, out of the ~.065g of powder from my 25mg pill, spilled some, and tossed the rest so I'm worried I might have put too much in each of them because the scale wasn't sensitive enough. 🤷‍♀️

Any insight or advice is greatly appreciated as I've read a lot on this site and this is still hella intimidating!

I personally wouldn't use the cutting and weighing for the low doses. I also have concerns about the accuracy of the scales. At higher doses you can probably get away with it more because of the lower SERT occupancy changes.

The good thing about making a liquid suspension is you can increase the dilution ratio as far as you want by adding larger volumes of water. For example, 25mg in 500ml gives you 0.05mg/ml.

February 20

23 minutes ago, Erimus said:

The good thing about making a liquid suspension is you can increase the dilution ratio as far as you want by adding larger volumes of water. For example, 25mg in 500ml gives you 0.05mg/ml.

Thanks so much for weighing in! I started to panic and double checked all my pill weights again, and still at the most they were weighing around .084g so glad to know yours ball parked around the same. I've got a bottle of 50 mg sert as well in the house.

You've given me the confidence to try the liquid dilution! From what i've read - can be done in water or juice, and as long as you store covered in the fridge, it can last for a few weeks, is that correct? Also happy to DM if that's easier/if this is getting too specific for the main thread.

February 20

1 hour ago, Erimus said:

My 50mgai sertraline pills weigh 0.1588g on average, so it adds up that 25mgai would be around 0.079gpw

Maybe for that drug. With trintellix the 5mg, 10mg, 20m doses are the exact same pill weight with different mgai.

February 21

12 hours ago, ThisIsthestart said:

and as long as you store covered in the fridge, it can last for a few weeks, is that correct?

The homemade liquid suspensions don’t last longer than about 4 days in the fridge.

Using a scale to weigh and measure doses

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