How does Time release or Sustained release work?

[its420time]

Just to name a few pills that use this method: oxycontin, wellbutrin SR, adderall XR, concerta. I know that the outer shell of these pills will NOT break the sustained release pills. Would anyone know how these pills work in your stomach? Of course if you crush them enough you would break the mechanism for the time release, right?
[ 13 May 2002: Message edited by: goodkarma ]

 

[Murple]

Time released pills and capsules all work in similar methods. Coatings are used which have different dissolving times. In a tablet, these may be layered so that the outside dissolves first, then the next layers. In a capsule, the drug is put into tiny little round beads, each coated with different substances. Some will dissolve faster than others. Crushing any of these will defeat the time release... so will letting the thing sit in a glass of water until it dissolves.

 

[@ndy]

That's not really accurate information murple. A lot of new extended release pills are being made so when they hit water, i.e. your stomach, they turn into a gel like substance, a plasma if you will. This gel is extremely cohesive to itself, etc, so it slowly gets dissolved as a whole in your stomach, releasing only the drugs on the outside of the "gel ball".

 

[@ndy]

to clarify, the pill as a whole will utilize first the coating, etc to time release. The gelling up thing is to prevent people from crushing the pill up, destroying the coating and taking it all at once.

 

[travis2600]

Well, couldn't you still disolve it in water and then drink it? I guess you might not want to rail gel, though.