Please Scroll Down to See Forums Below lynaghgrew
New member
food for thought, good post.
Splitting Arimidex Pills? Think again..
- Thread starter Slopain
- Start date
CYCLEON
New member
Slopain - while ur contributions are always thought provoking and insitefull, I must disagree on this one as I have been doing some looking into pill making. What you suggest would only work if the active drug is encapsulated in the center of a binder product - which is a quite expensive process requiring a special machine and would only happen for one reason - delayed release. more often the active drug is mixed in with the binder in a uniform manner so that when the ingrediants are pressed into a pill by a tabletting maching the drug is relatively even throughout - then a coating may or may not be applied to make it easier to swallow. the coating tho is quite thin and would not effet the drug- ergo - a 1/4 tab is roughly 1/4 the active drug in almost all cases
Im by no means a chemist, or even an experienced juicer, but im going to have to agree with the bros whom say that the mg's are even throughout the pill.
It seems ALOT of people have used cut up armidex and haven't reported any problems. If the armidex have a line down the middle, it's obvious that it's for splitting the pill, and who ever manufactured the pill wouldn't have put that line there if there was a chance that one of the halves would turn out to be a placebo. I also think it's a little odd to think that the entire 1mg of the armidex is nothing but a tiny grain stored somewhere within the pill.
It seems ALOT of people have used cut up armidex and haven't reported any problems. If the armidex have a line down the middle, it's obvious that it's for splitting the pill, and who ever manufactured the pill wouldn't have put that line there if there was a chance that one of the halves would turn out to be a placebo. I also think it's a little odd to think that the entire 1mg of the armidex is nothing but a tiny grain stored somewhere within the pill.
Well, I'm not a chemist either
but I am an engineer and have buddies who design the machines that make the pills that you are talking about and.... YOU CAN BREAK THEM UP!!!!
The machines are designed to thoroughly mix all active ingredients with the binder to the point where it is statistically impossible to break up a tab without getting a portion of the drug in every piece. Remember, the pills are made from compressed powder, not crystals or some large particulate, so the dispersion of the drug throughout the pill is guaranteed.... unless they're made in a mexican bathroom, and I can't speak on those ones.
but I am an engineer and have buddies who design the machines that make the pills that you are talking about and.... YOU CAN BREAK THEM UP!!!!
The machines are designed to thoroughly mix all active ingredients with the binder to the point where it is statistically impossible to break up a tab without getting a portion of the drug in every piece. Remember, the pills are made from compressed powder, not crystals or some large particulate, so the dispersion of the drug throughout the pill is guaranteed.... unless they're made in a mexican bathroom, and I can't speak on those ones.
Slopain said:
Slo, I just checked the arimidex information brochure which states:
"anastrozole has a mean terminal elimination half-life of approximately 50 hours in postmenopausal women".
Granted that 99.9% of us are not postmenopausal women lol, I find the extrapolation that half life for men is 24 hours to be unfounded, and am more in favor of it being closer to 2 days. Consequently, it would be sufficient to use 1mg every two days (if indeed it is impossible to not not evenly dose the drug when cutting it into quarters).
It would also be interesting to find the weight of the entire pill itself. A number close to 1mg would make it hard to believe that the drug is concentrated in only one portion of the pill since at that weight the active ingredient would have to constitute the majority of the tab.
George Stark
New member
1 tab weighs 105mg.
OK OK OK,
Lets see if I can help you guys settle this one. I am going to assume that not too many of you guys have been in a OTC/Pharmaceutical facility. I happen to work at one of the smaller ones. So I’ll explain a little about how this compounding works. Lets start with the misconception that there are many molecules of Anastrozle in the arimidex pills. This is simply not a good way to explain the fact that splitting pills would lead to less then an accurate dose. Each of the chemicals compounds are made by several different labs in several different countries. They all have to be standardized if you will to get an acceptable rating( ie, F.C.C , USP, or maybe even a research grade). So when a company such as the makers of Arimidex go to compounding a batch of tablets they have a Master batch formula. This contains the information necessary for them to create tablets of the same quality time and time again. As a side note most manufacture have more then one or two suppliers for each ingredient. Now we all know that AZ is not going to buy the actual Anastrozole from any one as they hold that patent and they create it in one of their many facilities. So on with the process:
1st. Step the manufacture orders in all of the raw materials (Anastrozole, lactose, magnesium stearate, hydroxyprpylmethlcellulose, Polyethylene glycol, providone, sodium starch glycolate and titanium dioxide). When the said company receives the raw materials they test each one for quality. When they are satisfied that all of the raw materials meet their standards they move to the next step.
2nd. Step the person in charge of batching the said product gathers all of the ingredient together and weighs each one out for the batch. Then usually a supervisor or at least some one else comes and checks the weights to make sure they are correct. ***sometimes each ingredient is ran through a mill to insure that all of the ingredients are the same size particles. This depends on the Batch Formula for the product.
3rd. Step then the materials move into a mix room and the ingredients are placed into the proper mixer ie. A dual cone mixer or some other appropriate dry powder blender).The ingredients are added some times all at once but usually they add different ingredients at different times, according too there weight and size.
4th. Step now a QA supervisor will check the batch mix consistence and create a few bench tablets. These are assayed for the proper mix. If the mix dose not conform or is to far out of spec then it is destroyed.
5th. Step the powder now goes into a vibrating hopper and is feed into the tablet machine. The machine presses the powder into tablets. And then the tablets are taken to a polisher and then film-coated and usually re-polished. From here they are off to another round of testing and to the blister packer. Then hopefully on to you.
Well if you take the Arimidex tablets and weigh them you will see that each one weighs 105mg. +/- 2.5mg. Now lets look at this logically none of the compounds were dissolved or combined any other way accept for mixing and then buy pressing them. Look at this crude explanation if you were to mix together all of the dry mix of a cake and take 1000g or 1kg and dump 10 single packets 10grams of sweet and low in there mix like hell. Do you think if you divided that into 10,000 little piles do you think each pile would have 1mg of sweet low in each pile (I Think Not) and if you split each one in half do you think you would have .5mg (Never) and if you split it again .25mg (Imposable).Have you ever seen 1mg of Anastorzole?? Take two grains of salt that is about 1.5mg. So the pharmaceutical companies are allowed a margin of error. If that margin was only +/- 1% they could have 1 out of every 100 pills that don not have any Anastrozole in them. And there could be 10 of those that had 900mcg or 1.10mg in them. It is a science but not an exact one.
Now that I have tried to explain why it is possible, from a manufacturing perspective, why if cutting tablets of less then 1mg. you may not get the proper dose every time. It is possible that you could get 1mg in one half or quarter and none in the others. It is also possible that you may get it exact. Somebody always wins the lottery right?
Now as for you that said so and so is on 2g of test per week cutting tabs and he is fine or something else like that. I have two things for you to think about:
1. Maybe his body reacts to anastrozole different the some of us.
2. Read this article on the Pharmacokinetics of Anastrozole.
“Pharmacokinetics
Inhibition of aromatase activity is primarily due to anastrozole, the parent
drug. Studies with radiolabeled drug have demonstrated that orally admin-
istered anastrozole is well absorbed into the systemic circulation with 83
to 85% of the radiolabel recovered in urine and feces. Food does not affect
the extent of absorption. Elimination of anastrozole is primarily via hepat-
ic metabolism (approximately 85%) and to a lesser extent, renal excretion
(approximately 11%), and anastrozole has a mean terminal elimination
half-life of approximately 50 hours. The major circulating metabolite of anastrozole, triazole, lacks pharmacologic activity. The pharmacokinetic parameters are similar in patients and in healthypostmenopausal volunteers. The pharmacokinetics of anastrozole are linear over the dose range of 1 to 20 mg and do not change with repeated
dosing. Consistent with the approximately 2-day terminal elimination half-
life, plasma concentrations approach steady-state levels at about 7 days of
once daily dosing and steady-state levels are approximately three- to four-
fold higher than levels observed after a single dose of ARIMIDEX.”
So you see arimidex has a half life of 50 hours or two days. Also Because of the longer half-life. It takes 7 days too normalize and the steady-state plasma levels are 3-4 fold higher then just taking 1-1mg dose and quitting. To me this means that if you tare taking .25 mg per day after 7 days you could have plasma levels of the drug up to the equivalent of 1 mg. So if you are some one that cuts the tabs and your body can get by with .25mg or .5mg every other day because of the long half-life then you should have no problems. I however because of the inaccurate pill cutters out there would just take one tab EOD. Now we al know that 1mg of anastrozole is the most effective dose Right? So why in the world would we try to just take enough to get by? I for one am scared to death of Gyno. Now that we all have several other cheap anastrozole suppliers let use this drug for all its worth.
GS
OK OK OK,
Lets see if I can help you guys settle this one. I am going to assume that not too many of you guys have been in a OTC/Pharmaceutical facility. I happen to work at one of the smaller ones. So I’ll explain a little about how this compounding works. Lets start with the misconception that there are many molecules of Anastrozle in the arimidex pills. This is simply not a good way to explain the fact that splitting pills would lead to less then an accurate dose. Each of the chemicals compounds are made by several different labs in several different countries. They all have to be standardized if you will to get an acceptable rating( ie, F.C.C , USP, or maybe even a research grade). So when a company such as the makers of Arimidex go to compounding a batch of tablets they have a Master batch formula. This contains the information necessary for them to create tablets of the same quality time and time again. As a side note most manufacture have more then one or two suppliers for each ingredient. Now we all know that AZ is not going to buy the actual Anastrozole from any one as they hold that patent and they create it in one of their many facilities. So on with the process:
1st. Step the manufacture orders in all of the raw materials (Anastrozole, lactose, magnesium stearate, hydroxyprpylmethlcellulose, Polyethylene glycol, providone, sodium starch glycolate and titanium dioxide). When the said company receives the raw materials they test each one for quality. When they are satisfied that all of the raw materials meet their standards they move to the next step.
2nd. Step the person in charge of batching the said product gathers all of the ingredient together and weighs each one out for the batch. Then usually a supervisor or at least some one else comes and checks the weights to make sure they are correct. ***sometimes each ingredient is ran through a mill to insure that all of the ingredients are the same size particles. This depends on the Batch Formula for the product.
3rd. Step then the materials move into a mix room and the ingredients are placed into the proper mixer ie. A dual cone mixer or some other appropriate dry powder blender).The ingredients are added some times all at once but usually they add different ingredients at different times, according too there weight and size.
4th. Step now a QA supervisor will check the batch mix consistence and create a few bench tablets. These are assayed for the proper mix. If the mix dose not conform or is to far out of spec then it is destroyed.
5th. Step the powder now goes into a vibrating hopper and is feed into the tablet machine. The machine presses the powder into tablets. And then the tablets are taken to a polisher and then film-coated and usually re-polished. From here they are off to another round of testing and to the blister packer. Then hopefully on to you.
Well if you take the Arimidex tablets and weigh them you will see that each one weighs 105mg. +/- 2.5mg. Now lets look at this logically none of the compounds were dissolved or combined any other way accept for mixing and then buy pressing them. Look at this crude explanation if you were to mix together all of the dry mix of a cake and take 1000g or 1kg and dump 10 single packets 10grams of sweet and low in there mix like hell. Do you think if you divided that into 10,000 little piles do you think each pile would have 1mg of sweet low in each pile (I Think Not) and if you split each one in half do you think you would have .5mg (Never) and if you split it again .25mg (Imposable).Have you ever seen 1mg of Anastorzole?? Take two grains of salt that is about 1.5mg. So the pharmaceutical companies are allowed a margin of error. If that margin was only +/- 1% they could have 1 out of every 100 pills that don not have any Anastrozole in them. And there could be 10 of those that had 900mcg or 1.10mg in them. It is a science but not an exact one.
Now that I have tried to explain why it is possible, from a manufacturing perspective, why if cutting tablets of less then 1mg. you may not get the proper dose every time. It is possible that you could get 1mg in one half or quarter and none in the others. It is also possible that you may get it exact. Somebody always wins the lottery right?
Now as for you that said so and so is on 2g of test per week cutting tabs and he is fine or something else like that. I have two things for you to think about:
1. Maybe his body reacts to anastrozole different the some of us.
2. Read this article on the Pharmacokinetics of Anastrozole.
“Pharmacokinetics
Inhibition of aromatase activity is primarily due to anastrozole, the parent
drug. Studies with radiolabeled drug have demonstrated that orally admin-
istered anastrozole is well absorbed into the systemic circulation with 83
to 85% of the radiolabel recovered in urine and feces. Food does not affect
the extent of absorption. Elimination of anastrozole is primarily via hepat-
ic metabolism (approximately 85%) and to a lesser extent, renal excretion
(approximately 11%), and anastrozole has a mean terminal elimination
half-life of approximately 50 hours. The major circulating metabolite of anastrozole, triazole, lacks pharmacologic activity. The pharmacokinetic parameters are similar in patients and in healthypostmenopausal volunteers. The pharmacokinetics of anastrozole are linear over the dose range of 1 to 20 mg and do not change with repeated
dosing. Consistent with the approximately 2-day terminal elimination half-
life, plasma concentrations approach steady-state levels at about 7 days of
once daily dosing and steady-state levels are approximately three- to four-
fold higher than levels observed after a single dose of ARIMIDEX.”
So you see arimidex has a half life of 50 hours or two days. Also Because of the longer half-life. It takes 7 days too normalize and the steady-state plasma levels are 3-4 fold higher then just taking 1-1mg dose and quitting. To me this means that if you tare taking .25 mg per day after 7 days you could have plasma levels of the drug up to the equivalent of 1 mg. So if you are some one that cuts the tabs and your body can get by with .25mg or .5mg every other day because of the long half-life then you should have no problems. I however because of the inaccurate pill cutters out there would just take one tab EOD. Now we al know that 1mg of anastrozole is the most effective dose Right? So why in the world would we try to just take enough to get by? I for one am scared to death of Gyno. Now that we all have several other cheap anastrozole suppliers let use this drug for all its worth.
GS
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