Many cholesterol medications can also be cut in half. Some examples include: Atorvastatin (Lipitor) Gemfibrozil (Lopid)
Yes. Many medications, such as cholesterol medications and medications prescribed for depression, can be cut in half. As a general rule, if the tablet has a score mark or groove down the middle, it can be split in half.
If you stop taking your statin medication, like atorvastatin (Lipitor), you could have a higher risk of heart problems, including heart attack and stroke. Your healthcare provider may recommend stopping your statin if you have serious side effects.
The half-life of atorvastatin is about 14 hours, while its active metabolites have a half-life of about 20 to 30 hours.
Alternate-day treatment with atorvastatin is comparable in efficacy and safety to the established daily treatment regimen, thus being a cost effective alternative.
Your doctor may suggest that you lower your dose or change your medicine. You will not get any withdrawal symptoms. However, stopping atorvastatin may cause your cholesterol to rise. This increases your risk of heart attacks and strokes.
If you miss a dose of this medicine, take it as soon as possible. However, if it is almost time for your next dose, skip the missed dose and go back to your regular dosing schedule. Do not double doses.
Now, if you are asking whether it is safe to split a tablet to get to the recommended dosage, the answer is yes. Lipitor does not have special coating or formulation that makes it a timed-release medication. Breaking the tablet in half will not alter its function or metabolism.
Serious side effects
you get unexplained muscle pain, tenderness, weakness or cramps – these can be signs of muscle breakdown and kidney damage.
Take atorvastatin once a day. You can choose to take it at any time, as long as you stick to the same time every day. This prevents your blood levels from becoming too high or too low.
Atorvastatin every other day significantly reduced total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), and LDL-c versus baseline. The TC, TG, and LDL-c levels were lower by 23 per cent, 8 per cent, and 30 per cent. Increase in HDL-c level was not statistically significant. Three patients had drug side effects.
If you've made lifestyle changes through diet and exercise that have lowered your cholesterol levels, you may not need to continue taking a statin. These changes can help reduce your risk of heart attack, stroke, or blocked arteries while allowing you to take one less medication.
Our analysis of current evidence suggests that intermittent statin administration is effective in lowering LDL levels in patients with dyslipidemia. All dosing regimens, including alternate days, 3 to 5 times a week, 2 to 3 times a week, and once a week, were shown to be effective.
A hard outer coat: Splitting a coated pill can make it harder to swallow and may change the way your body absorbs the medicine. They're extended release: Pills formulated to give you medication slowly throughout the day may lose this capability if split in half.
Don't split the entire vial of tablets at one time—air degrades the exposed drug. Do split your tablets only as you need them to maintain potency.
The rule of 6 is that when we double the dose of a statin, we only get another 6% LDL lowering.
This is because the enzyme which makes the cholesterol is more active at night. Also, the half-life, or the amount of time it takes for half the dose to leave your body, of some statins is short.
There are many risks associated with taking atorvastatin, so the drug is not as commonly prescribed as it once was. Memory loss, liver damage, type 2 diabetes, and kidney disease are all serious side effects associated with atorvastatin.
Some medicines can affect the way atorvastatin works and can increase the chances of you having serious side effects, such as muscle damage. Tell your doctor or pharmacist if you are taking any of the following medicines: antibiotics such as erythromycin, clarithromycin, rifampicin or fusidic acid.
Atorvastatin lowered LDL by 23% as well as improved HDL by 6,3%. The reductions of lipid profile with atorvastatin were large with both doses (20 and 40 mg). Furthermore there is no difference between the two doses. Therefore it is recommended to start with the lower dose.
Experts consider simvastatin and atorvastatin to be similarly effective for lowering cholesterol when dosed at a moderate intensity. In terms of doses, 20 mg to 40 mg of simvastatin should provide similar results as 10 mg to 20 mg of atorvastatin.
Although atorvastatin has a half-life of 14 hours, due to its active metabolites, the half-life of its HMG-CoA reductase inhibition is as long as 20 to 30 hours (2). For that reason, this is an ideal agent for alternate-day dosing.
Official answer. It takes about 77 hours (3 days) for atorvastatin to be out of your system. The elimination half life of atorvastatin is approximately 14 hours. This is the time it takes for your body to reduce plasma drug levels by half.
High dose statins (40mg and 80 mg atorvastatin) are important in reducing ASCVD events. However, these high statin doses are associated with increased adverse effects like liver enzyme elevation, new onset diabetes mellitus and myalgia/myopathy which are related to dose.