PDR Health Blog

With an unstable economy and a troubling recession, many people try to cut corners and save money whenever and wherever possible. Unfortunately, this doesn’t only happen at the grocery store, but at pharmacies as well. While saving a few dollars by purchasing the store brand of eggs or cereal isn’t such a bad idea these days, trying to save a few dollars by splitting pills may be more dangerous.

So the question remains, to split or not to split? Many medications are safe to split in half, those of which are typically scored. You know, the ones with the line down the middle? While other medications, especially certain cholesterol and blood pressure medications, some of the more costly, are actually dangerous to split in half.

Physicians or insurance companies sometimes recommend their patients split tablets for easy dosage adjustments or as a cost saving measure. This increasingly prevalent and, often times, unsafe practice of pill-splitting has led the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to take notice.

Why Pill-Splitting May Be Risky

• Accidental doubling of dosage if the patient forgets to split a higher dosage tablet
• Certain tablets are difficult to split perfectly, causing uneven distribution of medication
• Crumbling and breakage may occur if tablets are small, or unusually shaped, causing inaccurate dosing
• Not all tablets are safe to split! Capsules, coated and controlled-release tablets are not safe to split and should ALWAYS be swallowed whole

FDA Tips and Best Practices for Safe Tablet Splitting

• To check if your pills are FDA-approved to be split, check the “How Supplied” section of the package insert, or ask your pharmacist
• Don’t split your entire supply of tablets at once, split the tablet just before taking your dose; split tablets can be affected by heat, humidity and moisture
• Talk to your doctor or pharmacist about the best method to split your medication; usually a tablet splitter
• If you take a generic medication, check with your pharmacist if you receive a tablet made by a different manufacturer to be sure it is still safe to split (tablets made by different manufacturers can have different color or shape)

The Bottom Line

• Talk to your doctor or pharmacist before splitting tablets
• Not all tablets are safe to split
• For approved drugs, always use a tablet splitter to ensure accurate dosing!