Antibiotic Dosages - Adjust?

[Soloist]

Last night I cut the tablet in half. I just cannot function if I take the full dosage. (I do, after all, weigh less than 130, and I'm 5' 10 1/2" tall.)

Feeling OK so far this morning.

Tell doc you did so for intolerance. They need to know so they can adjust medication, lengthen your duration or simply record it.

[JohnH]

Last night I cut the tablet in half. I just cannot function if I take the full dosage. (I do, after all, weigh less than 130, and I'm 5' 10 1/2" tall.)

Feeling OK so far this morning.

Tell doc you did so for intolerance. They need to know so they can adjust medication, lengthen your duration or simply record it.

I’d second this. A doctor can often switch you to a different antibiotic. Every person is different, but I tolerate azithromycin fairly well. Clindamycin causes complete and total destruction…

[Neto]

I did the half dose Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning. Then last night I decided that since I was feeling pretty normal I would take the full dose. Then this morning I did the 1/s dose again, and just took the full pill not long ago. So if I feel ill, I can 'sleep it off', not needing to drive. (Tuesday I felt so shaky I didn't drive anywhere.) So far I think I can keep this up until the complete treatment is finished. It'll just take me two extra days to finish off the 20 tablets.

[Soloist]

I did the half dose Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning. Then last night I decided that since I was feeling pretty normal I would take the full dose. Then this morning I did the 1/s dose again, and just took the full pill not long ago. So if I feel ill, I can 'sleep it off', not needing to drive. (Tuesday I felt so shaky I didn't drive anywhere.) So far I think I can keep this up until the complete treatment is finished. It'll just take me two extra days to finish off the 20 tablets.

So when you skip a dose or take a half dose it reduces the therapeutic level of the drug in your system.
Think of two parallel lines, therapeutic threshold is between those two lines, toxicity is above the top line and ineffectiveness or increased risk of resistance is below the therapeutic level.
All medication has this range I’m describing and this is a fairly simple explanation.
Some medication literally has 0.1mg window and others easily have over a gram.
So the first dose often will barely pass into the therapeutic window and the next dose pushes it up a little more, this is the half life of the drug causing the drop off.

If you have any questions, feel free, but this is basically the why time, length of treatment and dose matters.

[Neto]

I did the half dose Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning. Then last night I decided that since I was feeling pretty normal I would take the full dose. Then this morning I did the 1/s dose again, and just took the full pill not long ago. So if I feel ill, I can 'sleep it off', not needing to drive. (Tuesday I felt so shaky I didn't drive anywhere.) So far I think I can keep this up until the complete treatment is finished. It'll just take me two extra days to finish off the 20 tablets.

So when you skip a dose or take a half dose it reduces the therapeutic level of the drug in your system.
Think of two parallel lines, therapeutic threshold is between those two lines, toxicity is above the top line and ineffectiveness or increased risk of resistance is below the therapeutic level.
All medication has this range I’m describing and this is a fairly simple explanation.
Some medication literally has 0.1mg window and others easily have over a gram.
So the first dose often will barely pass into the therapeutic window and the next dose pushes it up a little more, this is the half life of the drug causing the drop off.

If you have any questions, feel free, but this is basically the why time, length of treatment and dose matters.

I'm not sure I understand the ramifications of what I'm doing, but I could try to cut the tablet so that I'm taking a consistent dosage, like 500 mg. (That's the amount most doctors prescribe for me. This one is 875 Amoxicillin, so significantly more. I just cannot loose that many days when I feel so bad I cannot do anything worth while. (Today I was feeling well enough that I did a service call, and then after that I went out to the house we are remodeling and did some construction work.)