Ibuprofen – why is it recommended to take 2 x tablets every 4 hours but not allowed 1 x tablet every 2 hours. Surely it would make the pain relief longer lasting?
In: Biology
To simplify: the dose of the drug is like the power to kill the pain, the half-life is the time the drug stays in your body and kills the pain. If you take half of the dose every two hours you are lacking pain-killer power and the drug is not worn out when you take the new pill so it is totally useless.
Hope it helps 🙂
What the other comment said, but a bit of clarification.
When you take pills, the pills are made mostly of filler ingredients. These are made so that the active ingredients will slowly dissolve into your system, as opposed to getting the full benefit from one or both immediately. Thus, only 50% for 4 hours as opposed to 100% for 2 hours.
There’s a few reasons.
First, there’s the convenience. It’s much easier to remember every four hours to take two tablets than it is to take one every two, plus it gets it over with. Most people don’t want to set an alarm every two hours to keep the dosage proper, they just wait for the signal to take more pills if after four hours the pain starts coming back.
Then there’s the dosage level. If you take one, and then take another two hours later, you’re only getting 50% of best possible pain relief for the first two hours. When you’re hurting enough for two tablets as the “full dose”, you’re going to want that pain relief NOW, so you take the full dose at the start.
Next, a lot of reasons to take Tylenol are completely solved by the first dose. A lot of headaches or other aches go away completely on a single two-tablet dose, so you don’t have to come back two hours later to dose up again. And you should really only take pain meds when you actually need them, not take them sequentially over a period of hours if the pain has already been taken care of.
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