On Mon, 18 Jun 2018 15:30:36 +0100, Peter Parry wrote:

If that was the case then no two pills would ever carry the same dose.
The contents of each pill are, within very sight tolerances, the same.
Pill mixing/packaging machines are huge re configurable production lines
with sampling and checking for mixture components and homogeneity
throughout the process. Take half a pill and you are going to have half
the active ingredient.

Not always. Let me give a simple example. You have a dropper full of
medicine and a succession of sugar cubes going by on a conveyor. You have
to drip one drop on each as they pass. Every single one of those cubes
now provides one whole dose of medicine. If you take one of them you will
get one whole dose. OTOH, if you break it in two and take one half, you
might get the half with the whole dose, or the half with zero dose. What
you will *not* get, is half a dose.

What you shouldn't do is split either enteric coated pills or slow
release capsules as these are designed to start releasing the active
ingredient in different parts of the gut and the capsule or pill coating
is vital.

Enteric coated, certainly, but some modified release tablets *can* be
split into smaller doses: the DHC 60, 90 & 120mg range of painkiller
tablets for example.



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