Jump to content
SurvivingAntidepressants.org is temporarily closed to new registrations until 1 April ×

Heat, light and moisture may damage your drugs


areyouthere

Recommended Posts

  • Moderator Emeritus

I would like to grind a daily dose lexapro with a mortar & pestle and then put that powder in a dry, glass bottle with a lid tightened on it. 

 

I would like to make 14 bottles in the above fashion at one time. 

 

Then, everyday , I would take a bottle with the dry powder in it, add water, shake it up and take my dose.

 

My question:    Do I run a risk of any sort of break down of the active ingredient by doing this?

 

Thanks ,

 

RU

Fall 1995 xanax, zoloft. switched to Serzone

1996- spring 2003serzone/ xanax/ lightbox.

b]Fall 2003- Fall 2004? Lexapro 10 mg. Light box /4 mg. xanax.[/b]

2004 - Fall of 2009 10 mg Lex, 150 mg Wellbutrin XL % 4 mg xanax

November 2009- Sept. 2011 10 mg lex., 300 Well. XL, 4 mg Xanax [/b

Sept.2012- July 2012 20 mg Lex 300 Well. XL, 4 mg Xanax

My mantra " go slow & with the flow "

3/2/13.. Began equal dosing 5 Xs /day xanax, while simultaneously incorporating a 2.5 % drop ( from 3.5 mg/day to 3.4 mg/day)

4/6/13 dropped from 300 mg. Wellbutrin XL to 150 mg. Difficult but DONE! Down to 3.3 mg xanax/ day / 6/10/13 3 mg xanax/day; 7/15/2013 2.88mg xanax/day.

10/ 1/2013...... 2.5 mg xanax… ( switched to tablets again) WOO HOO!!!!!! Holding here… cont. with Lexapro.

1/ 2/2014.. tapered to 18mg ( by weight) of a 26 mg ( by weight) pill of 20 mg tab. lexapro. goal is 13mg (by weight OR 10 mg by ingredient content) and STOPPED. Feeling very down with unbalanced, unpredictable WD symptoms.

1/2/2014- ??? Taking a brain-healing break from tapering anything after actively tapering something for 1.5 years. So… daily doses as of 2/2/2014: 18 mg by weight Lex, 150 mg Well. XL, 2.5 mg xanax, down from 26 mg by weight Lex., 300 mg well. XL, 4 mg xanax in August, 2012. I'll take it. :) 5/8/14 started equivalent dose liquid./ tabs. 5/13/14 1.5 % cut.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You could call the manufacturer. Some drugs are more sensitive to humidity than others.

1st round Prozac 1989/90, clear depression symptoms. 2nd round Prozac started 1999 when admitted to dr. I was tired. Prozac pooped out, switch to Cymbalta 3/2006. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder due to mania 6/2006--then I was taken abruptly off Cymbalta and didn't know I had SSRI withdrawal. Lots of meds for my intractable "bipolar" symptoms.

Zyprexa started about 9/06, mostly 5mg. Tapered 4/12 through12/29/12

Wellbutrin. XL 300 mg started 1/07, tapered 1/18/13 through 7/8/13

Oxazepam mostly continuously since 6/06, 30mg since 12/12, tapered 1.17.14 through 8.26.15

11/06 Lithium 600mg twice daily, 2.2.14 400mg TID DIY liquid, 2.12.14 1150mg, 3.2.14 1100mg, 3.18.14 1075mg, 4/14 updose to 1100mg, 6.1.14 900 mg capsules 7.8.14 810mg, 8.17.14 725mg, 8.24.24 700mg...10.22.14 487.5mg, 3.9.15 475mg, 4.1.15 462.5mg 4.21.15 450mg 8.11.15 375mg, 11.28.15 362.5mg, back to 375mg four days later, 3.4.16 updose to 475 (too much going on to risk trouble)

9/4/13 Toprol-XL 25mg daily for sudden hypertension, tapered 11.12.13 through 5.3.14, last 10 days or so switched to atenolol

7.4.14 Started Walsh Protocol

56 years old

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Administrator

Yes, the drug ingredients tend to degrade with heat, light, or moisture.

 

Have you looked into Lexapro liquid?

This is not medical advice. Discuss any decisions about your medical care with a knowledgeable medical practitioner.

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has surpassed our humanity." -- Albert Einstein

All postings © copyrighted.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

you might be able to find some desiccant packets (like the ones in some supplements) to put in each bottle...if humidity is an issue. My sense is that what you're wanting to do is okay if the containers you put the powder in is closed and dark...

Everything Matters: Beyond Meds 

https://beyondmeds.com/

withdrawn from a cocktail of 6 psychiatric drugs that included every class of psych drug.
 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

most tablets stay good far beyond the expiration date...that's why I think a few days...(a couple of weeks) of being in a powder would probably be okay...that said, if you can get lexapro liquid -- it's far easier and more accurate to work with the liquid. 

Everything Matters: Beyond Meds 

https://beyondmeds.com/

withdrawn from a cocktail of 6 psychiatric drugs that included every class of psych drug.
 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator Emeritus

The liquid is very expensive… even from Canada. So. I will make a choice I guess… either pay the high price, make my own… I'm pretty confident in my skills for this and being accurate OR     take a chance in making a larger cut.

 

I don't like any of the options but the best is making my own. It will just be a huge pain in the arse… but I am grateful I have that option.

 

Thanks. I'll keep you updated.

 

RU

Fall 1995 xanax, zoloft. switched to Serzone

1996- spring 2003serzone/ xanax/ lightbox.

b]Fall 2003- Fall 2004? Lexapro 10 mg. Light box /4 mg. xanax.[/b]

2004 - Fall of 2009 10 mg Lex, 150 mg Wellbutrin XL % 4 mg xanax

November 2009- Sept. 2011 10 mg lex., 300 Well. XL, 4 mg Xanax [/b

Sept.2012- July 2012 20 mg Lex 300 Well. XL, 4 mg Xanax

My mantra " go slow & with the flow "

3/2/13.. Began equal dosing 5 Xs /day xanax, while simultaneously incorporating a 2.5 % drop ( from 3.5 mg/day to 3.4 mg/day)

4/6/13 dropped from 300 mg. Wellbutrin XL to 150 mg. Difficult but DONE! Down to 3.3 mg xanax/ day / 6/10/13 3 mg xanax/day; 7/15/2013 2.88mg xanax/day.

10/ 1/2013...... 2.5 mg xanax… ( switched to tablets again) WOO HOO!!!!!! Holding here… cont. with Lexapro.

1/ 2/2014.. tapered to 18mg ( by weight) of a 26 mg ( by weight) pill of 20 mg tab. lexapro. goal is 13mg (by weight OR 10 mg by ingredient content) and STOPPED. Feeling very down with unbalanced, unpredictable WD symptoms.

1/2/2014- ??? Taking a brain-healing break from tapering anything after actively tapering something for 1.5 years. So… daily doses as of 2/2/2014: 18 mg by weight Lex, 150 mg Well. XL, 2.5 mg xanax, down from 26 mg by weight Lex., 300 mg well. XL, 4 mg xanax in August, 2012. I'll take it. :) 5/8/14 started equivalent dose liquid./ tabs. 5/13/14 1.5 % cut.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator Emeritus

Super duh moment. All I need to do is ask my doc for a prescription for 10 mg tabs. of lex AND for the liquid. Take 10 mg tablet and the rest using the liquid until I'm down to just the 10 mg. tablet.

 

Do I blame this slowness on drugs? Uh. I'll say no. 

 

RU :)

Fall 1995 xanax, zoloft. switched to Serzone

1996- spring 2003serzone/ xanax/ lightbox.

b]Fall 2003- Fall 2004? Lexapro 10 mg. Light box /4 mg. xanax.[/b]

2004 - Fall of 2009 10 mg Lex, 150 mg Wellbutrin XL % 4 mg xanax

November 2009- Sept. 2011 10 mg lex., 300 Well. XL, 4 mg Xanax [/b

Sept.2012- July 2012 20 mg Lex 300 Well. XL, 4 mg Xanax

My mantra " go slow & with the flow "

3/2/13.. Began equal dosing 5 Xs /day xanax, while simultaneously incorporating a 2.5 % drop ( from 3.5 mg/day to 3.4 mg/day)

4/6/13 dropped from 300 mg. Wellbutrin XL to 150 mg. Difficult but DONE! Down to 3.3 mg xanax/ day / 6/10/13 3 mg xanax/day; 7/15/2013 2.88mg xanax/day.

10/ 1/2013...... 2.5 mg xanax… ( switched to tablets again) WOO HOO!!!!!! Holding here… cont. with Lexapro.

1/ 2/2014.. tapered to 18mg ( by weight) of a 26 mg ( by weight) pill of 20 mg tab. lexapro. goal is 13mg (by weight OR 10 mg by ingredient content) and STOPPED. Feeling very down with unbalanced, unpredictable WD symptoms.

1/2/2014- ??? Taking a brain-healing break from tapering anything after actively tapering something for 1.5 years. So… daily doses as of 2/2/2014: 18 mg by weight Lex, 150 mg Well. XL, 2.5 mg xanax, down from 26 mg by weight Lex., 300 mg well. XL, 4 mg xanax in August, 2012. I'll take it. :) 5/8/14 started equivalent dose liquid./ tabs. 5/13/14 1.5 % cut.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Administrator

You got it!

This is not medical advice. Discuss any decisions about your medical care with a knowledgeable medical practitioner.

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has surpassed our humanity." -- Albert Einstein

All postings © copyrighted.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator Emeritus

Super duh moment. All I need to do is ask my doc for a prescription for 10 mg tabs. of lex AND for the liquid. Take 10 mg tablet and the rest using the liquid until I'm down to just the 10 mg. tablet.

 

Do I blame this slowness on drugs? Uh. I'll say no.

Guess I'm in the same boat then. I batted back and forth about how I was going to need so much liquid diazepam, and then I realized.. use the tablets to the closest reasonable, then supplement with the liquid. Duh! Great minds flub alike.

As always, LISTEN TO YOUR BODY! A proud supporter of the 10% (or slower) rule.

 

Requip - 3/16 ZERO  Total time on 25 years.

 

Lyrica: 8/15 ZERO Total time on 7 or 8 yrs.

BENZO FREE 10/13 (started tapering 7/10)  Total time on 25 years.

 

Read my intro thread here, and check the about me section.  "No matter how cynical you get, it's almost impossible to keep up." Lily Tomlin

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator Emeritus

As far as the stability of drugs under different conditions, this appears to be pretty variable, just from what studies I can find on the Internet. If you can't find anything about your particular drug you might ask a pharmacist, I think they have more access to that information.

 

It does appear to me that most drugs are more stable than we think. But you can't assume it.

 

I realize this is a moot point now that you've solved your problem but I thought I'd toss it in for other people who might see this thread and be wondering about the same things.

Started on Prozac and Xanax in 1992 for PTSD after an assault. One drug led to more, the usual story. Got sicker and sicker, but believed I needed the drugs for my "underlying disease". Long story...lost everything. Life savings, home, physical and mental health, relationships, friendships, ability to work, everything. Amitryptiline, Prozac, bupropion, buspirone, flurazepam, diazepam, alprazolam, Paxil, citalopram, lamotrigine, gabapentin...probably more I've forgotten. 

Started multidrug taper in Feb 2010.  Doing a very slow microtaper, down to low doses now and feeling SO much better, getting my old personality and my brain back! Able to work full time, have a full social life, and cope with stress better than ever. Not perfect, but much better. After 23 lost years. Big Pharma has a lot to answer for. And "medicine for profit" is just not a great idea.

 

Feb 15 2010:  300 mg Neurontin  200 Lamictal   10 Celexa      0.65 Xanax   and 5 mg Ambien 

Feb 10 2014:   62 Lamictal    1.1 Celexa         0.135 Xanax    1.8 Valium

Feb 10 2015:   50 Lamictal      0.875 Celexa    0.11 Xanax      1.5 Valium

Feb 15 2016:   47.5 Lamictal   0.75 Celexa      0.0875 Xanax    1.42 Valium    

2/12/20             12                       0.045               0.007                   1 

May 2021            7                       0.01                  0.0037                1

Feb 2022            6                      0!!!                     0.00167               0.98                2.5 mg Ambien

Oct 2022       4.5 mg Lamictal    (off Celexa, off Xanax)   0.95 Valium    Ambien, 1/4 to 1/2 of a 5 mg tablet 

 

I'm not a doctor. Any advice I give is just my civilian opinion.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 years later...

Hey guys,

I'm still in the blue about what exactly hit my stomach so hard in this Sertraline tablet I took months ago, that some sort of immediate adverse effect did upset it so much it went into full pain mode for weeks and developed nerve damage and severe gastroparesis through this.

 

I recently came across this article https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/16/health/16consumer.html where a pharmacist explains, that some medications (eg. antibiotics, aspirin) can be compromised due to high storage temperatures resulting in an alteration of the ingredients in the medication which can "enable" it to afflict damage to the stomach. 

 

Since then, I am wondering, if the tablets I admittedly have been storing for some time (and actually dont know what temps they have been exposed to, since I dont know where they were flying around) could have been compromised thus making them hurt my stomach so much.

 

Did you guys ever felt like storage temps affected your medications in a way (not talking about them losing efficancy) and do you play it safe, when storing them or do you actually dont care when they are exposed to heat and never had any problems with that?

 

Thanks!

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Altostrata changed the title to Heat, light, and moisture may damage your drugs
  • 3 months later...
On 3/10/2014 at 6:04 PM, Altostrata said:

Yes, the drug ingredients tend to degrade with heat, light, or moisture 

 

What kind of light exposure are you talking? In my case, I’m opening Cymbalta capsules and dividing them into clear gelatin capsules... and I need light to divide divide the beads, and since they’re going into clear capsules afterwards, that’s basically asking for light exposure...

Should I try to store them in a dark place?

ANTI-DEPRESSANTS (approximates):

2000--2009/10. Zoloft, mid-high dosage. Alprazolam, as needed, rarely. 

2009/10--2016/17. Cymbalta, 90 mg

Early 2017--Mid-2017. Cymbalta, 60 mg

Mid-2017--Jan 2018. Cymbalta, 30--60 mg, reduced in 30 mg increments w/o physical w/d symptoms, possibly some emotional w/d symptoms. Mar 2018--Early 2019. Back on Cymbalta, fluctuating dosages from 30 to 90mg. Reduced from 60 to 30, then from 30 to 0 again, this time WITH very light physical w/d symptoms. Back to 30mg. Early 2019--April 2019. Cymbalta, 30mg. Down from 30 to 0. Physical w/d symptoms again. Back to 30mg. May 2019. Cymbalta 30 mg. Down to 20 mid-month. Started taking every other day in final week of the month. 

Jun 2019. Cymbalta 10-ish mg. Started “eyeballing” about half of the beads in the capsule. Taking every other day, then at mid-month every 4 days. 

July 2, 2019. Took last dose of “eyeballed” 5-ish mg. July 24, 2019. Took first reinstatement dose of 2mg. Dropped down to 1mg (6 beads) the very next day.

Aug 6, 2019. Up-dose to 1.33 mg. Aug 30, 2019. Up-dose to 1.5 mg. 

SUPPLEMENTS

Vitamin D3 4,000 IU/day

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • ChessieCat changed the title to Heat, light and moisture may damage your drugs
  • 6 months later...

I'm currently stuck with a terrible method for dosing lyrica/pregabalin, dividing a capsule's powder into tiny piles on a plate. Some of it sits there for 2 or 3 weeks before I take it, exposed to humidity and some light. I opened a new capsule and the old powder looked a little grey compared to it.

 

Worse, the capsules I'm using expired 4.5 years ago though generic advice from the net about drug shelf life and talking with a pharmacist suggests this might not be big deal.

 

Is there any information on how this affects lyrica? Any ideas about how much this matters? If it does I may have to switch to a liquid dose for consistency.

  • 1995-present: on and off various antidepressants, and many changes in dose. Never tapered properly
  • 2012-present: citalopram. Steady dose of 27.5mg since July 2020
  • 2020: pregabalin for 2 months. Very bad withdrawal.
  • Current daily medications: 27.5mg citalopram. 1mg melatonin, 4mg doxazosin, 300mg docusate.
  • My intro topic

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Some details of my bad method: I divide capsule's powder into two piles of 1/2, then divide each pile again and again. Currently I take 1/64 + 1/128th of a capsule every morning and again at night. This has limited accuracy of course, but it gets worse; there is residue left on the plate after the division. The amount of residue has changed over time since I switched from a big knife to a razor blade, and I haven't been consistent about how much residue I leave. At one point I thought measurements would be more consistent if I kept "reference" piles of each key size: 1/32, 1/64 and 1/128. But I realise now the references are not accurate, and I'm basically eyeballing the new piles now to match the reference ones.

 

  • 1995-present: on and off various antidepressants, and many changes in dose. Never tapered properly
  • 2012-present: citalopram. Steady dose of 27.5mg since July 2020
  • 2020: pregabalin for 2 months. Very bad withdrawal.
  • Current daily medications: 27.5mg citalopram. 1mg melatonin, 4mg doxazosin, 300mg docusate.
  • My intro topic

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A pharmacist said I could make my own liquid lyrica from capsules but consume it the same day or it may degrade. But everything I've read about water titration suggests a week is ok, though not referring to lyrica specifically. So either the pharmacist was being overcautious or it degrades faster than other drugs.

  • 1995-present: on and off various antidepressants, and many changes in dose. Never tapered properly
  • 2012-present: citalopram. Steady dose of 27.5mg since July 2020
  • 2020: pregabalin for 2 months. Very bad withdrawal.
  • Current daily medications: 27.5mg citalopram. 1mg melatonin, 4mg doxazosin, 300mg docusate.
  • My intro topic

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 7 months later...
  • Moderator Emeritus

Idea for keeping your drugs out of the heat:

 

One option would be to buy a small polystyrene box to keep it in.  Once upon a time you used to be able to buy polystyrene boxes with a handle which held 6 cans of drink.  Not sure if they are still available.  Probably not now because they are not eco-friendly.

 

You might be able to get one from a craft store.  If you can't get one the right size you could buy sheets of polystyrene and make your own.  I think you can glue it with PVA wood glue.

 

Examples:

 

Polystyrene-Shapes-Oval-Box-White

 

Polystyrene-Shapes-Pirate-Chest-White

You'd have to cut out the centre of this one.

* NO LONGER ACTIVE on SA *

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED:  (6 year taper)      0mg Pristiq  on 13th November 2021

ADs since ~1992:  25+ years - 1 unknown, Prozac (muscle weakness), Zoloft; citalopram (pooped out) CTed (very sick for 2.5 wks a few months after); Pristiq:  50mg 2012, 100mg beg 2013 (Serotonin Toxicity)  Tapering from Oct 2015 - 13 Nov 2021   LAST DOSE 0.0025mg

Post 0 updates start here    My tapering program     My Intro (goes to tapering graph)

 VIDEO:   Antidepressant Withdrawal Syndrome and its Management

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Terms of Use Privacy Policy