A different approach to reducing.

I thought I would share this as it seems to be working for me.

Given that the two variants of pred. (Coated & uncoated) seem to have slightly different absorbsion into the blood stream I thought I would experiment with switching between the two types when reducing.

What I have done is 12.5 mg uncoated then to reduce to 10 I took 12.5 mg coated for a month then went back to uncoated but 10mg. Have been on 10 now for 2 weeks. In another 2 I will again switch to coated at 10mg for a month then 7.5un coated.

It seems to be working for me so far.

As I say I believe this is due to the fact that the coated tablets effectively deliver a slightly lower dose than the uncoated variety due to being absorbed into the blood stream in a different part of the gut.

I would be interested in comments.

Brian.

[David_H]

Interesting comment. i've just reduced from 4mg to 3.5mg. I took the 4mg in 4 x 1mg tablets (uncoated) but the 2.5mg apartently only come in the coated form so I'm taking 1 x 2.5mg (coated) and 1 x 1mg uncoated.

I'm noticing the drop but if the coated tablet is a weaker form of the uncoated tablets then effectively my reducion will be greater.

Anyone else with information on the difference between strengths of coated and uncoated?

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to David_H]

There is no real difference in the "strength" as you put it. The difference is in the way it is absorbed in the gut.

Plain white uncoated tablets are absorbed immediately from the stomach, depending on the amount of food there is which does slow absorption some. So it tends to achieve a fairly speedy and steep peak (about 2 hours to peak) when measured in the blood which then falls off slower. Coated pred takes much longer to get to the peak (anything up to 7 hours or even more) which is likely to be a bit lower and it then falls off in a similar way - it gets further down the gut, then the coating has to be broken down and then it can be absorbed.

So the uncoated peak is like a high cliff rising from a beach with a gentle slope down inland, the coated is a gentle slope up to a lower height and a gentle slope down. The total amount absorbed is much the same but over a different time period.