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Medication half life can be confusing. If you know what to expect from medicine, you won’t feel the need to guess when taking it. Learn more!
Have you ever felt withdrawal symptoms after you stop taking a medicine, prescribed or over the counter? Have you ever taken medicine and wondered how long it takes to start feeling its effects?
These are questions that can be answered by understanding medication half-life, which affects you each time you consume a drug, whether it was a prescription or bought over the counter.
We have created a go-to guide on medication half-life, starting with a clear definition.
Medication Half-Life Defined
The medication half-life of a drug is the amount of time it takes for the drug’s main active ingredients to reduce by half in your body. It’s an estimated time used to determine when precisely 50% of a drug will be metabolized and exited from the body.
During this time, the chemicals in the drug are still interacting with your brain’s chemistry.
For example, if your instructions for taking medicine are to take a 20mg dose every four hours, there should only be 10mg left in your system in two hours. When you reach four hours, all the medicine should be metabolized and no longer in your system.
Certain factors can alter the half-life of a medicine.
Factors Affecting Half-Life
There are factors from the person taking medicine and also factors from the drug itself that affect half-life.
Gender, weight, height, ethnicity, and age are examples of factors of the human body. Further factors are a person’s blood circulation, diet, kidney and liver function, pre-existing conditions, obesity, smoking, and the use of other drugs, illicit or not.
Depending on the drug you take, factors influencing half-life can include the formulation. For example, some drugs are created to be extended-release while others are quick release. How the drug is administered makes a difference too.
If it is taken orally, the drug must pass through the digestive system before it enters the bloodstream. This is a much longer process than if the drug is injected directly into your bloodstream. IV administration means the drug will go into effect and exit your system much faster.
Other drug factors include whether the drug is made to exit your body, where it is stored in the body, and if it binds to proteins or not. Some drugs are created to have short half-lives, while others are designed for a longer half-life.
Short vs. Long Half-Life
There are differences between short and long half-lives. When a drug has a short half-life, that means the effects of the drug will arrive quickly. It also means the drug and the effects will leave your system quickly. Medicines with a short half-life must be taken multiple times throughout a day to feel the effects consistently.
Substances with a long half-life will take longer for effects to appear. But that also means the impact will last longer. It can take days or weeks for the drug to leave your system.
Short half-life drugs will produce more difficult withdrawal symptoms than long half-life drugs. Below are examples of medications with both short and long half-lives.
Drugs With Half-Lives
Anti-anxiety drugs like Xanax are considered to have a short medication half-life. The effects start to appear within an hour of consumption and only last about six to twelve hours, depending on the human factors mentioned above. However, there are some anti-anxiety drugs with longer half-lives, including Klonopin and Valium. With medications like this, it’s possible to develop a tolerance that can lead to addiction.
The same is true for short half-life drugs in the amphetamine category, like Ritalin, Concerta, Adderall, Desoxyn, and Dexedrine. Amphetamines speed up your metabolism, which also speeds up the amount of time the drug is in your system.
Drugs with longer half-lives include those that affect the heart, like Pacerone. Anti-depressants like Effexor, Prozac, and Zoloft can have a half-life of two to four days. A drug called Aimovig used to treat migraines has a half-life of 28 days.
Most illicit drugs have short half-lives, making users more likely to become addicted. Heroin and crack cocaine, for example, can have a half-life for some of just minutes. Marijuana has the most prolonged half-life of about two weeks.
Why Understanding Half-Life is Important
If you take prescribed, over-the-counter, or illegal drugs of any kind, you must first understand what you are putting into your body. Do not take medicine just because a doctor or someone told you it would help ease symptoms you may be having. For one, most drugs create more side effects.
Ultimately, you are responsible for keeping your body safe. Doctors are rarely able to spend the quality time necessary with a patient to get to know all the factors that can influence medicine’s half-life in your system. Therefore, you must educate yourself on everything you consume.
Medication Half-life is essential when assessing the effects of drugs, like when they are working and when they are not. You may be tempted to take a double dose if you don’t think a drug is working fast enough. This could lead to overdose. Or, you may take more of an amount than prescribed to avoid breaks in the effects. Again, this could lead to overdose, as well as addiction.
If you know what to expect from medicine, you won’t feel the need to guess or make dangerous decisions when taking it.
Gathering more information on every substance you take is simpler than you may think.
Where To Learn More
Researching medicines on the internet is one of the most common ways to get more information. That is likely how you found this post. The key to successful internet education is to make sure the materials you read are from legitimate, professional resources.
The best way, however, is to ask your local pharmacist for guidance. They are the experts when it comes to all pharmaceutical drugs. The next time you visit your local pharmacy, take time to ask your pharmacist about the medication half-life of the medicines you take. Doing so could prevent adverse health events.
