- Joined
- Dec 11, 2014
- Messages
- 118
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My cat was just prescribed Amitriptyline. The label says the tablets are 10 mg and to dose the cat with a half tablet. I tried cutting them (they are very tiny and not scored), and maybe half of them ended up in roughly equal parts. My husband got involved (he's an engineer and likes to solve problems) and separated the pills into those that were approximately half and those that were in unequal portions, then calculated how many doses I would get from each group, which in the case of the irregularly cut ones would mean sometimes using two or even three very small segments to equal half the pill—the correct dose. He then put the half tablets in the original bottle and found an empty prescription bottle for the irregular segments I wrote the name of the new drug on the label and am keeping all the bottles in the same place). Since cutting the pills also created a lot of powder, I didn't end up with 60 doses from the 30 pills. My thought is that well before two months are up I'll be in contact with the vet for a progress update and can request a refill of at least enough pills to reach the 60-dose count, if the vet feels it's necessary to continue using them. Obviously, given that many of the pills are not precisely one half of the uncut tablet, trying to select two or three fragments to make the desired amount is going to mean the dose is slightly off some of the time, whether a bit too little or a bit too much. Is that a problem? I assume that if this tablet had been available in a 5 mg size, that's what would have been in the bottle, so there's no other way to get a 5-mg dose than to cut them. I was reading another thread about pill cutters but didn't skim through enough to find a clear recommendation for any product or strategy for getting more accurate results. At any rate, it's too late for this bottle, but if I get a refill I'd like to have a better approach to halving them.
