Dosage question: less more often or more less often?

[OxyRotten]

Is it better to take a low dose more often or to just take a good high dose once or twice a day?

 

[T. Calderone]

(moving from anonymous)
It would depend on what type of drug you are taking and for what purpose. You'll need to be more specific.

 

[Coolwhip]

In my experience, the latter, redosing often leads to rapidly increasing tolerance, dependence, and side effects even if you are ingesting the same amount of drugs in the end.

 

[MrRoot]

Unless you are taking for example a gabapentin which doesn't absorb well with bigger doses and spacing the doses are effective way to increase bioavailability.

 

[JessFR]

I think you'll need to be more specific about what the goal is. If it's to avoid dependence, bigger doses less often is probably a little better. But it depends on how frequent "less often" actually is.

 

[Chronicpain54]

I take small doses every 4 hours or so. For me it works better at controlling pain and keeping me even. My last dose is at 6pm or so and I awake at 6am every morning.

I'm in slight withdrawal when I wake up but I think that even if I took a large dose at 6pm that I'd still need my medicine as soon as I woke up, so why waste it?

If I took 2 large dosages I would be a messed up idiot for several hours and be in a ton of pain before I could dose again.

It hasn't affected my tolerance as I get the same amount month after month after month..

If I started chasing a certain feeling then I'd run out early every month and that's wholly unappealing to me.

 

[Coolwhip]

I guess that comes down to how he is using and what the goals are. I wasn't looking at it from the point of view of a chronic pain patient, more someone dependent on drugs perhaps on maintenance or benzo dependent; even someone using meth recreationally, in which case if its hitting the pipe every hour or parachuting an effective amount you are going to be better off parachuting some or snorting a line in the morning then bringing out the pipe every couple hours throughout the day. Even if it was someone using oxy's to catch a buzz, they are going to end up far worse off if they pop a couple everytime their buzz fades, than if they resolve themselves to taking ~20-30mg every 8 hours.


RoA and specific dose surely plays a role also, my view breaks down when talking about ER drugs, patches, or maybe even say using buprenorphine SL and taking tiny amounts under the tongue throughout the day. But even with buprenorphine my experience says its better to take slightly more than needed to stave off WD once or twice a day, then it is to dose the bar minimum it takes to hold you 4+ times a day or everytime you have the urge to; especially when talking about people with a history of substance abuse allowing yourself to deviate from a regimented dosing schedule is a slippery slope....its mostly about preventing peaks and troughs and any dose that absorbs slowly or is sufficiently low enough to not cause stiff peaks in blood plasma levels would have less negative effect on tolerance/dependence.

Even if this isn't about chronic use, and strictly how to catch the "best" buzz, you are DEFINITELY going to get a better buzz the longer its been since you dosed last. I figured that would go without saying and I inferred this was about keeping tolerance down/tapering/maintenance.