mL to mg morphine?

[wantokporo]

What's wrong with my math: dr. prescribed .5 mL morphine which the web tells me is 100mg?

[Madlegs1]

Wrong spider?

1 ml = 1mg (of water)

I think!

[teakabeagle in reply to Madlegs1]

1 ml doesn’t equal 1 mg, but it does equal 1cc. 1 ml of medication can contain many mg of medication.

For example 1 ml of Celestine has 6 mg of celestial e, 2ml of Celestine would contain 12 mg of Celestine. You have to check concentrations on a

[Madlegs1 in reply to teakabeagle]

Thanks for the clarification.👍

[Madlegs1 in reply to teakabeagle]

If it's water ,it's all the same.

Depends on the specific gravity of the material or liquid.

😝

[Joolsg]

healthy.kaiserpermanente.or...

Each ml of liquid morphine contains 20mg of morphine according to this.

But that would mean 0.5ml would be 10mg.

It is very confusing and worrying though, and has led to overdoses.

Normally ml =mg, but clearly not for medications.

It must be even more confusing for USA, where the metric system doesn't apply.

[Wtfisup in reply to Joolsg]

Just have to chime in. It is more confusing in the USA! I’m 60 and when we were in 3rd grade (age 8) we had to start learning it because we were told it would be mandatory soon.

Still waiting. 🙄

[Joolsg in reply to Wtfisup]

It's ridiculous here in the UK. We have both systems. All meds, food from supermarket fabric and curtain lengths are Metric. But clothes sizes are often inches rather than centimetres. Drinks in bars are both metric and imperial. Wine comes in cl glasses but draught beer is served in pints and half pints.All our road distances and signs are in miles. Some cars have miles per hour on the speedometer, others have km per hour.

It is an absolute mish mash. Our children learn the metric system in school, but still have to understand some imperial measures.

Confusing.

[Wtfisup in reply to Joolsg]

Had to google imperial. 📐💂‍♀️ Actually sounds much more confusing there and I would be on calculator a lot if I ever had the opportunity to visit.

Btw, love the way you say vitamin. 💊😉

[SueJohnson in reply to Wtfisup]

I was also told that and I am 83.

[TheDoDahMan in reply to SueJohnson]

Is that in metric or Imperial?

[SueJohnson]

That is a lot of morphine. The Mayo Clinic algorithm say the effective dose for RLS is 15 to 45 mg.

However I was replying to the 100 mg which was corrected to be 10 mg.

[wantokporo]

Does it matter that the bottle says: morphine sulfate 20mg/5ML SOL?

[Joolsg in reply to wantokporo]

I would ask your pharmacist to clarify. It may differ for each brand. If the bottle says 20mg morphine is 5ml then 1 ml would be 4mg morphine.But the article I found mentions 1ml of morphine solutions equates to 20mg of morphine. It is indeed VERY confusing and slightly worrying.

If your doctor says to take 0.5ml, that is one tenth of 5ml. So that needs double checking.

Ask the pharmacist AND your doctor to confirm you have the correct medication and ask them to clarify what dose you should take and when.

Liquid morphine is clearly more powerful then pill form and different brands appear to have different strengths.

[LotteM in reply to wantokporo]

"Sol" stand for solution. And 20mg /5 ml gives the concentration of this particular bottle. The morphine comes (can be made) in different concentrations. Follow the guidance given by your doctor. If s/he said to take 0.5ml (=1/10 of 5 ml) then you will take 2 mg (=1/10 of 20mg) of morphine. Simple math/calculus, nothing to do with metric or non-metric.

Sorry, but everybody else has only looked at amounts ml to mg, but that depends completely in the density of the matter. But this issue here is all about concentrations, and they can vary for the same substance, in this case morphine.

Have I clarified things enough? Anyway, as Joolsg said, when in doubt, always check with your doctor or pharmacist.

[wantokporo]

Thanks. That was already my plan.

[wantokporo]

Pharmacist says my dosage of .5 (based upon the particular mixture--which matters) is 2mg. I'll know if the doctor agrees next week.

[wantokporo]

Thanks everyone for your input. I think I know what to do now.

[Johnson326]

I think the problem here is that you are comparing two different measures - 1 ml is a measure of volume and 1 mg is a measure of weight so they can't be compared. Volume must be compared to volume and weight to weight.