Pill cutting. Accurate dose?: Hi all, does anyone... - Thyroid UK

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Pill cutting. Accurate dose?

Rmichelle profile image
9 Replies

Hi all, does anyone else have a problem with their pill cutter? I got mine from superdrug costing £3 but i am finding sometimes it cuts the tablet over half and then i cut the other half and that turns out uneven, sometimes im there for ages just trying to cut them accuratley. Agggh, by this point my language is worse than i fish docker.😨. They are 5mg tablets but i see endo on tuesday and he will probably say 2.5mgs or less. I think i may go back to using the scissors!!

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Rmichelle profile image
Rmichelle
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9 Replies
waveylines profile image
waveylines

Some pill cutters are better than others but it is very hard to cut fully accurately. What I do is to make sure that I use the other part tablet in next timed dose so that it evens out. If you cut them all up you cant do this. So this way it means you might be very slightly under or over the dose one time but the next time you take it the other half of the tablet wil counter it. Hope that makes sense! For this reason I cut mine up as I go along.....

Rmichelle profile image
Rmichelle in reply to waveylines

Good idea that is what i shall do then-makes perfect sense. Thankyou.xx

Clutter profile image
Clutter

Rmichelle,

Difficult to accurately quarter small tablets. As Wavey said, if you cut as you go the small fluctuations in dose shouldn't be too obvious.

Rmichelle profile image
Rmichelle in reply to Clutter

Much appreciated clutter as always.

BadHare profile image
BadHare

My hand snapped pills are a tad wonky, sometimes.

Some folks take different doses on alternate days, with success. I guess that a micro gram or two will even out over 48 hours, so I don’t worry about it too much.

Valarian profile image
Valarian

I get my carbi from the hospital, in a big pot, and last time they gave me a plastic pill cutter so that I could cut 20mg tabs in half (I think they were short of 5mgs, and apparently they only come in 5mgs and 20mgs). I'm currently back on the full tablet, but always ended up with two odd bits and some crumbs, even when I did manage to line the split line on the tablet up properly in the cutter. I've wondered previously how you've been managing to cut yours into quarters !

It's a good job we don't have to start cutting the tablets until we are getting better, I can't imagine how I'd have coped in the early days, with trembling hands and the impatience of full-on Graves !

Rmichelle profile image
Rmichelle in reply to Valarian

Ha yes, that made me laugh, i still have some trembling and usually drop things, seeing endo on tuesday as i am now hypo and should be titrating dose further to be weaned off eventually. But i know alot of people have to quarter tabs aswell who are on a maintenance dose.

humanbean profile image
humanbean

I have never found a good pill cutter. I've tried 3 or 4 different ones. The only half-way decent one I found went blunt in no time at all.

Now, I use a hobby knife or scalpel. I bought one that looks something like this :

hobbycraft.co.uk/xcut-no-1-...

I've found that each blade lasts for a very long time and I bought the knife with spare blades. I don't think I'll need to buy a new one for at least 5 years.

It does take practice, and I still get some uneven halves and quarters, but at least it doesn't just crush the tablets, as pill cutters often do.

Rmichelle profile image
Rmichelle in reply to humanbean

Wow thanks human bean-that looks super-i will definitley try that, i think thats the problem the blades dont last long on the cutters and when you push down you can hear the crumbling and you just know its wasted again.😊

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