How to make a liquid from tablets or capsules

[Sottana]

Really? It seems like a lot of sediment to be all filler? I was thinking of getting Ora-Plus just to curb my ocd 

[Sottana]

For anyone who feels their liquid is uneven and the pill just sinks to the bottom, Ora Plus works incredibly well at disbursing the pill evenly. I use 10 ml water and 10 ml Ora plus with my 20 mg of Paxil. I’m no longer worrying about it evenly dispersing. It’s clear as day that it works super well. 

[thecowisback]

ii noticed i was low down in the jar of liquid this morning and it tasted more bitter than usual as there was more powder at the bottom. i wonder if any of the moderators would know more about how much of this powder is filler - i'm sure someone told me on here somewhere that all the medicine dissolves and the powder that's left is filler. i tried tagging some mods but it won't let me send the post with the tags in it for some reason. 

[Sottana]

Do you make your own liquid or get it at a pharmacy? 

[thecowisback]

i make my own. 

[Sottana]

Me too. If you can afford the Ora plus and are stressing about dispersion, I highly recommend it. I have no idea if the sediment is filler or not, but the fact that it’s evenly mixed with the Ora eases my mind and is worth the money imo. 

[Sottana]

I do half Ora 10 ml and half water. Being that the bottle contains over 400 ml, this will last me over 40 days. On amazon it’s like 25 bucks. Expensive, but not as much as paying like 250 a month for liquid paxil

[thecowisback]

• i'm trying to find a similar item in the uk but i think it must be called something different over here 😊

[Sottana]

There’s gotta be. Go to a compounding pharmacy and see what they offer 

[thecowisback]

we don't have one of those where i live 😑

[ChessieCat]

I suggest you contact the manufacturer https://www.perrigo.com/default.aspx

[thecowisback]

just double checking my dosage. i was making liquid from 1 x 20mg capsule in 20ml of water and taking 5ml a day - 5mg prozac. the mixture was running out quickly so today i used 3 x 20 mg capsules in 60ml of water so i still take 5 ml to equal 5mg prozac? i'm sure that 's right but needed to double check 😉 @ChessieCat

[Songbird]

On 4/25/2019 at 7:09 AM, Adili13 said:

For anyone who feels their liquid is uneven and the pill just sinks to the bottom, Ora Plus works incredibly well at disbursing the pill evenly. I use 10 ml water and 10 ml Ora plus with my 20 mg of Paxil. I’m no longer worrying about it evenly dispersing. It’s clear as day that it works super well. 

 

This is what I've been doing as well, just in case there's any active ingredient stuck inside those tiny pill crumbs!  I also like that it makes a syrupy liquid rather than water, it seems easier to handle when measuring and when actually taking it.

[Altostrata]

On 5/2/2019 at 12:31 AM, thecowisback said:

just double checking my dosage. i was making liquid from 1 x 20mg capsule in 20ml of water and taking 5ml a day - 5mg prozac. the mixture was running out quickly so today i used 3 x 20 mg capsules in 60ml of water so i still take 5 ml to equal 5mg prozac? i'm sure that 's right but needed to double check 😉 @ChessieCat

 

The 20mL lasted you 3-4 days, correct?

 

60mL might last you 11-12 days. I would not keep a do-it-yourself liquid for more than maybe 4 days, it might go bad, even in the refrigerator.

 

Your math is correct but your technique is not recommended.

[thecowisback]

ok, thankyou ☺

[Lakelander82]

Realistically though, measuring out  such minuscule doses accurately, especially using your own homemade suspension is next to near impossible. Even if you carry out everything the same every time, you could be getting 12mg one day, 8mg the next, 14mg the next day, 5 mg the day after that. Your dose could be all over the place each day. When I got down to 12mg (theoretically) it looked like I was taking water with a few granules of powder in it, there could have been 2mgs in it for all i know. Everything is just guess work. 

[Altostrata]

Many people have successfully tapered with homemade liquids. If you're trying to rationalize making a big decrease in dosage because of difficulty measuring, you're wrong.

[Lakelander82]

I’m not trying to rationalise any big decrease, I’m merely saying that there is most likely significant disparities in dosages by making up your own suspension everyday...no matter how careful you are. 

 

[Altostrata]

Making your own liquid suspension is not ideal. A liquid compounded by a pharmacy would be preferable, but many people can't afford it or don't have access to a reliable compounding pharmacy.

[Lakelander82]

Who’s to say a Liquid made in a Pharmacy is any better? They probably would take even less time and care over than the person tapering it. When you’re down to 4 or 5 mg of anything, and bearing in mind, 1mg is 1000th of a gram, you’re really down to splitting hairs.

 

I’m worried this website creates an army full of obsessive tapererers, unnecessarily. One occupancy study used to back up this level of tapering, with a caveat of, oh but we don’t know where you’re individual curve lies, doesn’t really count has hard evidence.

 

A person coming off heroin or alcohol, which is extremely toxic to the body doesn’t taper for as long as advocated on here. I was told by one of the moderators when I was coming up to virtually 2 years of tapering that I was tapering too fast (from a relatively low dose I might add), common sense would tell you that a period of two years tapering is not too fast. 

 

 

 

[thecowisback]

I'm still having trouble getting the last bit of compacted powder out of the capsules. I've tried using as toothpick to scrape out the last bits but some still remains. If I put the capsule into the water to wash it out some powder sticks to the capsule when I remove it. Would it be ok to leave the empty capsule in the solution for the duration of the use of the liquid? 

 

[TriD]

I'm trying to take small amount of lexapro, i have 10mg tablet, but feel I only need a minute dose.

 

0.5mg or 0.2mg based on the attached PDF which i made, it would think a 10-20% 5-HTT block would be enough to treat my symptoms as i continue to taper.

 

i have a digital scale, so I am thinking of crushing the 10mg tablet to powder and weighing out what would be 0.5mg/0.2mg, which would be micro dosing.

 

then i will put the powder into 10ml of water and swallow that, in that i dont need to dissolve it, but rather mix it to a larger volume to allow for ingestion rather than putting powder in mouth which might have no effect.

 

thanks

Doc2.pdf

[brassmonkey]

You would be working with a very tiny amount of powder and losing any of it would cause a large change in the strength of the dose.  If you try putting it into water there is a good chance that some will stick to the container and be lost.  There are several other ways that might work better.  Take a spoon of apple sauce or fruit jam and pour the powder on a pile on top of that and swallow it whole. Or take a very small piece of toilet tissue (single ply) and wrap the powder in that.  Make it into a tiny ball and swallow it whole with some water.

[TriD]

nice thanks for the tip, i think i need a bit more paper in my diet so will take that option.

[swordiebrom]

aren't you afraid of a relapse while you are tapering? i think i might have experienced a relapse of some sort or withdrawal,i  cant really tell, each relapse hurts my cognitive function

[ChessieCat]

Is it withdrawal or relapse?  Or something else?

How do I know it's withdrawal and not relapse?

[Daffy]

I was wondering if tap water was OK to use to make my liquid or do I need to buy distilled water?

 

[ChessieCat]

I think tap water is okay.  However I think it would be better to use distilled water, bottled water or filtered water.

 

The unused portion needs to be refrigerated in a dark/tinted (preferably), covered container.

[Daffy]

Ok. Thank-you!

 

[Raye]

On 2/8/2014 at 1:50 PM, Ks1994 said:

I'd like to just add that if you switch from pill to liquid you likely should updose because your body will interpret it as a withdrawal. I could not stabilize on liquid and had to resort back to cutting/filing which is not as accurate unfortunately,

thats true. I was able to stabilize but I found that the dose changes depending on the kind of water you use. I noticed this with tap water vs filtered. I always used tap then the day I switched to filtered I went in withdrawal.. I think its because of the minerals in the water cause it to disperse differently

[hezzer78]

Anyone use this stuff to make their suspensions? It's considerably cheaper than Ora Plus - looks like the same thing. Would it be ok?

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0773N95JL/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[beardsagain]

Hey all, so I've started emptying my 20mg fluoxetine capsules into 200ml of filtered water, to see if there is any difference in effect when taking the capsule straight up. 

 

I can feel a difference. I found the potency of the drug to be much less than when I take it via the capsule. Is that crazy? Could there be some degradation happening? I try to take it as soon as possible after mixing and with food in the morning. I am wondering if there is just a small amount of degradation, or maybe small amounts that are lost when I open the capsule (sometimes a small amount of powder gets on my hands). Also there is a bit of residue on the glass. I fill my container back up repeatedly until the taste is gone to get as much of the residue. 

 

I am wondering if either of these factors are contributing to lower dosage, and therefore the feeling of reduced potency, or if it is all in my head. Or maybe I am just this sensitive to even the smallest amount of change to the medications.

[Greenriver]

I’ve just read that Citalopram is insoluble in water? 

 

https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2011/020822s038s040,021046s016s017lbl.pdf

 

How then, is it possible to make a liquid with it using water as the OP states? 

[brassmonkey]

You are correct Citalopram does not dissolve in water.  You have to do what is called a suspension, where you shake up the liquid every time just as you use it so the cloudy stuff is evenly distributed in the water.  You can also purchase a suspension medium, which is a thick syrup which holds the particles up so they don't settle out.  Or you could dissolve it in alcohol and then mix the alcohol with water. I think all three methods are discussed in this thread.

[bubbles]

I have ordered Ora-Plus to make my own suspensions at home.

 

With 1x 50mg tablet and Ora-Plus to make a 1mg=1ml solution, that would make a batch that would cover about 17 days at my current dose. I see that the consensus here at SA seems to be to discard after a week or less. If I'm going to discard after a week, it will become an expensive exercise.

 

It looks as though, in my country, if a suspension is made up by a compounding pharmacy, it seems that a standard use by date may be 28 days. It's obviously hard to determine, but I have also heard from my local pharmacy that if they make me up a suspension, that they think the use by date is longer than that - for my particular drug and their particular suspension vehicle - I don't know what it is so, but it's definitely not Ora-Plus as that's not available here. (Mine is coming from the US.)

 

So, my 17 days' worth of suspension is obviously shorter than that 28 days. I'm wondering if it is worth an experiment on my part to push it a bit further, given that I'd be using the proprietary suspension formula, would disinfect everything I use, use cooled boiled water if I decide to dilute, can keep in the dark in the fridge etc.

 

Any thoughts? Do we know why the thought here at SA is to only keep home made suspensions for such a short time?

[Pokeshaw]

Hi all - on my long slow micro taper I have  been having brand Lexapro compounded. The compounding pharmacy uses a slow release filler - Methocel E4M.  I am down to  0.1 mg and they cannot make capsules at lower doses. They offered an aliquot (10 caps of 0.01 mg ea) which I tried and my brain went sideways for months. I switched back to the individual capsules of 0.1 mg.  I have gained some stability but seem to be experiencing both w/drawal and side effect symptoms.  Over the yrs of my taper the side effect symptoms were always what prompted me to make a reduction.  And i feel i need to do that soon.

Unfortunately the filler Methocel E4M is not water soluble. it clumps up and really sticks to the side of the glass.  Very hard to make a suspension. it only dissolves in very hot water but I dont want to do that.

So I had the pharmacy make me 0.1mg caps in Methocrystalline cellulose which dissolves nicely in water but is fast release. I am trying to transition over by taking it (capsules for now with the idea of dissolving in water later) every 3 days but already feeling w/drawal aggravation.  Not sure how to do this?

Is there a way to make a suspension with the slow release Methocel E4M filler?

Or should I go more slowly with the transition from the slow release to fast release capsules?

Any ideas would be very helpful!

Thank you!

Poke