Reducing by 0.5 mg

Hiya!!

I know exactly what you mean, one day the 'half' is larger than the second day!! However I take heart that I have the correct dose over 2 days and that's all that matters!!

Andrea xx

If you are in UK Boots sell a neat little cutter where the bits are caught in a little tray. I used it to cut both 5 and 1mg. tablets.

You actually can get almost any "daily" dose you want. For example, I am now taking 6mg a day. (half an 8mg tab plus half a 4mg tab) My next reduction will be to 5.4mg "daily". (Ten percent reduction.) What I will do is take 54mg over ten days. I will do this by taking 6mg on 7 of a ten day period and 4mg on the other 3 days. 6,6,4,6,6,4,6,6,4,6 

 

I got simple cutter from ebay and works on 5mg and 1mg pills. One alternative is - if 1mg pill has"score line" then you can split it by putting it on the flat surface and pressing on each side of the line. As far as being exact, it does not matter that much, because eventually you will use smaller and bigger half - total over couple of days will be the same.

Are you in the UK? If so, are your tablets enteric coated, i.e. are they red 5mg, brown 2.5mg? If so you must not cut them. 

Using a pill cutter it is possible to cut most 1mg tablets. If you have 5, 2.5 and 1mg tablets you can make most doses down to 2.5 without problems by combining 2.5 to give you the 1/2mg and other tablets:

5+2.5+1 = 8.5

5+2.5     = 7.5

2.5+1+1+1=1= 6.5

2.5+1+1+1 = 5.5

and so on.

But it doesn't really matter whether they cut evenly - you will get something lower than the last dose and that is all you want. a slightly lower dose.

And yes, you can take doses on alternate days but you can also use this approach which slows down doing a 1mg drop so it is easier for your body to accept:

https://patient.info/forums/discuss/reducing-pred-dead-slow-and-nearly-stop-method-531439

I take alternate doses i.e. 5mg and 4mg the next day, never had a problem luckily.

Thanks to all who have replied so far. I do have a pill cutter but it does not have a collection tray under it.

My pills are white - the 2.5 has a scoremark - the 1mg does not. I do find it very hard to cut the tiny  1mg - the 2.5 is not so bad.

Regarding the half being different sizes - yes i see what you all mean that it does not ultimately matter 

 

It's taken a long time and much practice but I'm getting pretty good at getting two uncrumbled halves now.  I use a free pill cutter given to me by my pharmacist but you can buy them too.  When one half is crumbled, that's the dose I take that day and save the "whole half" for the next time I need a split pill.  Like the others I'm not concerned about a slight variation in the daily dose. 

For a long time I had 5 mg tablets on hand and cut those to get 2.5 which was very useful for doses below 5 in combination with 1 mg tablets.