Why do some medications need to be taken every few hours while some can be taken daily, weekly, or monthly?

Question

Why do some medications need to be taken every few hours while some can be taken daily, weekly, or monthly?

In: 2

Answer 1

Different medications metabolize at different rates. So you need to take them often to avoid too much or too little medication in your system. There are very few medication which have effects lasting more then a week though. And when you are dealing with monthly medication you are most likely talking about medications that needs to be taken at certain points in the menstrual cycle or slow release delivery. The last one is pills which take a long time to dissolve and will release small amount of medications as they do so. Obviously this can not be done orally but needs to be injected.