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        New Message Board Archives >> Medications, Treatments, Therapies 2004 >> Folly (or a semi-useful Imitrex Tip?)
        
(Message started by: Rock_Lobster on Mar 4^th, 2004, 6:33am)

Title: Folly (or a semi-useful Imitrex Tip?)
Post by Rock_Lobster on Mar 4^th, 2004, 6:33am

Problem summary: Wanted to figure out a way to get the value of the Imitrex 50mg & 100mg tablets into the lower Imitrex NS doses and faster response times.

Idea summary: Using an empty Afrin pump/bottle, 1.5ml of water, & one 50mg Imitrex tablet, I easily rigged up something that (making the unlikely assumption of no loss in potency) delivers about 3.3mg of Imitrex up my nose per squirt.

Night #1 result summary: It fuckin worked.

Night #1 result... a bit more detail: 2 HA's. I normally would have hit them with a 50mg tablet each, with results in about 15-20min with success about 70% of the time.

Last night I hit HA #1 with a squirt of my magic elixir in each nostril... about 6.6mg total... HA gone in 5 min.
HA #2 took a squirt in each nostril, then after 7 min a followup squirt in each nostril... 13.2mg. HA gone in 12 min.

Total for the night... about 20mg. Would have been a minimum of 100mg with a far longer response time and greater chance of a misfire with the tabs, in my opinion.

I will provide more details later if there is any interest.

I like the idea of 3x100mg tablets taking care of perhaps 20HA's (at 15mg/each delivered nasally).

Rock Lobster

Title: Re: Folly (or a semi-useful Imitrex Tip?)
Post by Tiannia on Mar 4^th, 2004, 1:58pm

ok question, did you grind up the tab before mixxing with water and how do you ensure that it is completly mixxed and not settleing to the bottom of the bottle? Do you shack each time to ensure (or at least try to ensure) even distribution throughout the liquid?

Tiannia

Title: Re: Folly (or a semi-useful Imitrex Tip?)
Post by forgetfulnot on Mar 4^th, 2004, 2:22pm

Makes sense to me, 2-3 weeks back there was a similar post but involved converting the pills to a injectable form. This was met with strong resistance however. Imitrex is listed as being highly soluble in water, very easy to convert to a liquid suspension. As long as proper sterile laboratory procedures were followed there is no reason that either one of these stretching techniques should not work. 100mg of Imitrex is 100mg of Imitrex, pill, spray or injection, the only difference is the delivery method and the dose required for that method, injections being 6mg, nose spray 15mg? and orally 50-100mg.

Lee

Title: Re: Folly (or a semi-useful Imitrex Tip?)
Post by Rock_Lobster on Mar 4^th, 2004, 3:24pm

Tiannia: There was no need to grind it. It dissolved quite readily in the 1.5ml of water. A slight bit of graininess remains... one can feel that in the nose.

forgetfulnot: The solubility in water is exactly what sparked the idea. How to get the most cost effective form (100mg tabs) into my skull in a safe manner (nasal... I saw that injection thread also). Exactly as you stated... water suspension.

My current test solution is with 50mg tabs. 100mg will be better... less water per mg... about 6.6mg per spray assuming the same 1.5ml of liquid per tablet.

Very rough measurements for the particular Afrin bottle I have:
10 sprays per 1ml of fluid == .1ml per spray
2 sprays to prime pump

The Afrin atomizer rocks. I expected it to clog fairly rapidly, but there is no sign of of any such problem.

Rock Lobster

Title: Re: Folly (or a semi-useful Imitrex Tip?)
Post by Tiannia on Mar 4^th, 2004, 3:55pm

I am very willing to try this. As I can only get 6 NS per 25 days. Like htat really is enough to assist with Clusters. Hell I hold off using it until I am at my wits end and just cant handle it any more and I can get 6 100mg tabs ever 2 weeks so this will allow me to make it stretch.

Tia

Title: Re: Folly (or a semi-useful Imitrex Tip?)
Post by Rock_Lobster on Mar 4^th, 2004, 4:20pm

Well I volunteer to be your guinea pig for the next few days. Each night I am good for 1 or 2 HA's when in a cycle (like now).

What I liked:
The speed was about the same as regular NS.
The dosages I needed to kill it were lower than I anticipated... 6-7mg for the first, 12-13mg for the 2nd.

Tonight I will go straight to 12-13mg. One shot in each nostril... let it absorb/dry with oxygen... reshoot.

Contrast that to the prior evening with tabs. The first 50mg tab was a misfire, requiring a 25mg followup 20 minutes later. 75mg gone + 35 minutes of pain.

With luck last night was not a fluke.

Rock

Title: Re: Folly (or a semi-useful Imitrex Tip?)
Post by forgetfulnot on Mar 4^th, 2004, 5:33pm

Quote:

It dissolved quite readily in the 1.5ml of water. A slight bit of graininess remains... one can feel that in the nose.

Rock, this is the binder used to hold the pill together. You can buy various filters at any lab supply store to eliminate the binder from the solution. ;)

A small amount of heat along with agitation will also help.

Lee

Title: Re: Folly (or a semi-useful Imitrex Tip?)
Post by Tiannia on Mar 4^th, 2004, 5:39pm

on 03/04/04 at 17:33:47, forgetfulnot wrote:

A small amount of heat along with agitation will also help.

Lee

I was wonrdering if heat would work for this as when my son was teething and the doc told me to desolve the teething tabs he said that warm (more then tipid) water would work better to help it desolve and not get the gritty issue.

Thanks Lee

Tia

Title: Re: Folly (or a semi-useful Imitrex Tip?)
Post by t_h_b on Mar 4^th, 2004, 8:40pm

Interesting.

Are you using the new tabs? They're supposed to dissolve faster.

The nasal spray is plain sumatriptan, NOT sumatriptan succinate like the injection and tabs. I'm not clear on why the difference--maybe somebody with a better grasp of chemistry can explain why the tabs and injections require a salt and not the nasal spray. Maybe it has to do with absorption and requiring a smaller molecule?

You might even try a coffee filter to get rid of some of the additives if you don't have lab filters. I never noticed much difference in them.

Be careful not to mix up too much at a time because without preservatives you could end up snorting bacterial soup after it brews a while!

Good luck with this!

Title: Re: Folly (or a semi-useful Imitrex Tip?)
Post by forgetfulnot on Mar 5^th, 2004, 1:48am

Quote:

NOT sumatriptan succinate like the injection and tabs

It could be that the succinate component is removed from the nasal spray for comfort reasons, I don't know. Either way the succunate factor should not interfere with the primary drug one way or the other but may improve the absorption rate in the gut or via injection.

Lee

Title: Re: Folly (or a semi-useful Imitrex Tip?)
Post by Rock_Lobster on Mar 5^th, 2004, 7:01am

The atomizer part of the Afrin sprayer clogged up solid last evening. Unable to backflush. So there is a definite need to filter the particulate matter.

thb... Used a 3 year old sample 50mg tab for the original. Added a week-old 50mg tab, which has considerably more filler & meat by-products, to the mix yesterday. Coffee filter == fine idea.

Thoughts for today...
I will dissolve the tablet in the syringe, then shoot it through a coffee filter into the Afrin bottle, being careful to wet as little of the filter as possible... just the corner iin the bottle. With luck it should result in some non-grainy sinus-coating Trex goodness.

Rock

Title: Re: Folly (or a semi-useful Imitrex Tip?)
Post by Kevin_M on Mar 5^th, 2004, 7:37am

Rock,

Been following this thread. Just wanted to add, the nasal imitrex has 20mg per dose. If you are getting results at 15, you are economizing well. Just wanted to mention to not go beyond 20mg, that is the dosage per nasal, and I would hesitate to use more than that per dose without at least 2 hrs between doses.
Interesting with all the contribution by everyone. Hope the coffee filter works.

Kevin M

Title: Re: Folly (or a semi-useful Imitrex Tip?)
Post by Rock_Lobster on Mar 5^th, 2004, 10:56pm

An update:
The filtered batch did not go well, likely due to the formulation of the new tablets.

For the first batch, the one I had the great results with, I used an ancient tablet... at least 3 years old. It dissolved much like a baby aspirin would... quickly and evenly.

Today I used two fresh 50mg tablets. Wow... the formulation has really changed. These foamed, bubbled and congealed to a degree.

The resulting fluid had no effect... took 3 shots in each nostril over a 20min period. Should have totaled about 30mg. Nada. Zip.

I saved the filtered sediment just to see if the Trex stayed in it... will pop that with the next HA... but I get the feeling that the foaming indicated 'this Imitrex will self destruct in five minutes'.

For anyone who wants to try filtering this with a coffee filter, note that a dry filter will wick up a load of moisture. I watched a small swatch of filter soak up 1.5ml of this fluid as though it were nothing. Pre-soak your filters.

Sucks to be us.

Rock

Title: Re: Folly (or a semi-useful Imitrex Tip?)
Post by Kevin_M on Mar 6^th, 2004, 12:51am

Sorry this did not go good for you. It all began sounding promising. It's tough to get by the reaction from the new tablets. Sounds like a setback. Why would a tablet react that way to water? Drinking it with water would make that reaction in the stomach. Perhaps it is now made that way to release faster in water and when mixed with water has a chemical reaction that dissolves it in a different way. I don't think dissolve is the right word, because it is NOT dissolving now in water, it is having a different reaction. Sounds like a reaction to something too high in acid. It might now be made to reaction that way to lower ph levels, such as that like water for faster absorption instead of waiting for stomach acid.
There are some who have some science here, Edski usually likes these challenges.
The soaking up of the water by the filter is again hard to get around, good thinking of soaking the filter, however this has come to a standstill.
We need a brainstorm or this may now be a bridge too far. Don't know.

Kevin M

Title: Re: Folly (or a semi-useful Imitrex Tip?)
Post by David A on Mar 6^th, 2004, 1:42am

medical scientiest Iam not: but a couple of Ideas ---

attempt the same disolving idea in standard I.V. saline salution.

place a piece of medical grade filter in the 02 hose forcing it up in the hose about 1/2"

raise the temp of the saline to around 90 - 100 degrees

Using an injector pull the plunger apart and drop you tablet in the injector --- place the plunger back in and force out all the air possible then bring in your saline

the idea here is to prevent air from creating a reation causing a better control on the process.

if all goes well the foaming will not happen.

Inject the salution in the 02 hose (inject at the end where the filter is located). Slow and easy.

The filter will prob. plug up atleast once. but that problem can be resolved later.

Insert the finished product in the afrin bottle.

---------------------------------------------------------------
another choice is prepare the mixture as above but skip the filtering and the afrin bottle and use a nebulizer --- what effect this will have on the lungs is far beyound my knowledge.

it would seem to me that it would enter the blood much quicker in method.

just a few thought that might help spark a great idea.

dave

Title: Re: Folly (or a semi-useful Imitrex Tip?)
Post by Kevin_M on Mar 6^th, 2004, 2:49am

on 03/06/04 at 01:42:15, David A wrote:

The idea here is to prevent air from creating a reation dave

Denying air to prevent the reaction, and using saline, with techniques. Good contributions, as well as the rest of the post, the denying air hit me as promising.

Kevin M

Title: Re: Folly (or a semi-useful Imitrex Tip?)
Post by Tiannia on Mar 6^th, 2004, 3:46am

on 03/06/04 at 02:49:19, Kevin_M wrote:

the denying air hit me as promising.

Right if it is bubbling then it is making a gas of sorts which not having the air as a molecule tp attach to might help indeed.

Also Lee brought up the warm/hot solution to try and help it desolve better.

Thanks Rock for trying.

Tiannia

Title: Re: Folly (or a semi-useful Imitrex Tip?)
Post by Rock_Lobster on Mar 6^th, 2004, 8:44am

I will play around with this a bit more when my Trex supply builds back up.

Rock

Title: Re: Folly (or a semi-useful Imitrex Tip?)
Post by David A on Mar 6^th, 2004, 12:23pm

One additional thought -- after doing some quick study this morning refreashing my high school chem studies. If i am reading this correctly and the memory is not failing me :-/.

In liquid form you must have a Binder such as a glutamate to stabilize the mixture that is where the succinate comes in because it is a type of glutamate.

In the first situation of trying this -- was the affrin bottle competely clean and fresh --- meaning no residue of the affrin.

The chem base of affrin by nature to stabilize it must have a form of glutamate in it --- is it possible that you stumbled on a chem reaction between the affrin and sumatriptan?

this could be tested quite easly when you can by adding .05% Oxynetazoline Hydrochloride (affrin) at a balance of 1/20 affrin to 19/20 saline and sumatriptan solution. This amount is a bit greater than residue level but prob whould be effective.

If the "no air" approch fails to prevent oxidation (foaming) of the solution --- but the first situation no foaming occured it stands to reason that a binder is needed -- since the first pills you used may have contained succinate and the new ones may not have contained it.

I will see if my doc can get me some "free" samples of the tablet form of trx 100mg if i can i will get them to you for the expirements.

another factor that may cause the oxidation is the purity of the saline or water --- the Ph level must be absolute Neutral (a flat 7) while the Ph level of the injectable trx is 4.2 to 5.3 making it closer to a base than an acid.

Leading a thought that says you could have (in the last expirment) mixed an acid and base --- meaning your water had a high ph level and the trx is a low ph level. kinda like mixing bleach and ammonia (try it you get a similar deal --- DO IT OUT SIDE IF YOU ARE GOING TO TRY IT).

--------------------------------------------

Don't think for a minute that iam a scientist or anything like that --- back in the high school days i was very interested in the hole chem thing -- and this discussion has brought back some of those interests. And i really like brainstorming like this --- you learn alot by doing it --- and you can solve alot of problems.

sorry for the long post.

dave

Title: Re: Folly (or a semi-useful Imitrex Tip?)
Post by Kevin_M on Mar 6^th, 2004, 1:01pm

on 03/06/04 at 12:23:13, David A wrote:

another factor that may cause the oxidation is the purity of the saline or water --- the Ph level must be absolute Neutral (a flat 7) while the Ph level of the injectable trx is 4.2 to 5.3 making it closer to a base than an acid.

Leading a thought that says you could have (in the last expirment) mixed an acid and base --- meaning your water had a high ph level and the trx is a low ph level.
dave

That's what that foaming action reminded me of, mixing something in with a solution which was too acidic.

Kevin M

Title: Re: Folly (or a semi-useful Imitrex Tip?)
Post by Rock_Lobster on Mar 6^th, 2004, 1:23pm

Heh heh! I did not get anywhere near that scientific.

The first mix, with the ancient smaller 50mg tab, was done in a shot glass. The tablet plus 1.5ml of water. It simply dissolved... no action.

The second mix was a fresh 50mg tab split in half inside of a syringe (new), into which I pulled 1.5ml of water. Completely different action... it worked itself up into a froth. I had to pull additional air into the syringe to avoid having the foam eject from the top.
(most of mix two soaked into the filter... pretty much wasted, thus the third mix)

The third mix was a fresh 50mg tab inside a shot glass, much as the first. Results were more similiar to the second mix... once it started to dissolve, it foamed a bit and congealed.

Perhaps the generic Imitrex I just ordered from shoprxonline will be more like the old Imitrex tab I had luck with.

Rock