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Hul-Gil comments on Is it okay to take toilet-pills? / Rationality vs. the disgust factor - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (37)
They are timed-release, but the mechanism extends throughout the pill, so I'm pretty sure they're okay at least dose-wise. Good idea on calling the pharmacy, though; I know I'll be able to get them at least a couple days early... I was just unsure about a whole week.
Literally lol'd at the sane story bit - "I dropped my pills in a sick person's glass, then dipped them in alcohol; are they still okay?!"
My concern with a possible overdose has less to do with the amount of drug in the pill (which wouldn't be changed), and more to do with how much of it is in your bloodstream at once. I don't know how your pills work, but the kind I described work by having the different balls dissolve at different rates in one's stomach acid, and it's at least plausible that dampening them would change that property so that they all dissolve quickly and put however-many hours' worth of drug in your bloodstream at once, which sounds potentially-dangerous to me.
I'm sure you're keeping an eye on yourself, though, and if anything odd starts to happen you'll get it dealt with. Shouldn't be too big of a risk.
Any delivery mechanism which can be dangerously interfered with by taking pills with water, or drinking water shortly before or after taking the pills, is in urgent need of replacement. Although there are medical treatments which you're supposed to avoid drinking water before, I don't think any pills such as this actually exist.
I assume that the variability of stomach contents is accounted for in the creation of the mechanism, at least to some degree. (This may be part of why some meds come with instructions to eat or not eat before or after taking them - such instructions are relatively common, though I don't remember if they correlate with sustained release mechanisms, and I know there can be other reasons for those directions.) Dampening the pills and then drying them out seems like it could have a different effect than drinking water when taking them, and exposing them to other chemicals could also have unexpected effects, and it's better to be safe than sorry.