# Double dose?



## dontcare (Oct 6, 2008)

Last night I noticed I had drunk a cup of water, and my bottle of pills was right next to me. But I couldn't remember swallowing the pills. So I swallowed some pills and was like gosh, this seems familiar, I must have already taken them. I'm taking 75 mg, double that would be 150, which may not sound like a lot but I just raised my dose and that's 3x what I was taking last week. I feel fine, just a slight headache, so I guess I survived the experience.

I'm embarrassed to ask my psychiatrist about this, so I'll ask all of you. What's better--to skip a dose, or to perhaps take double?


----------



## livingnsilence (Feb 4, 2008)

What medicine are you on? In gernal though most SSRI's, SNRI's and most anti-anxiety meds they suggest that if you miss a dose to skip it and return to normal dosing schedual. But if you are on lower doses doubling up isn't going to hurt you but it will increase side effects. If doubling up this time didn't bother you, and I'm guess based on the mg's that you are on effexor, and if it is effexor if you can't remember if you took a dose go ahead and take another one because 150mg a day is a normal dose, but if it did bother you this time skip it. It may help to get one of the medi-packs that you put a weeks worth of doses in to keep track of wheather or not you took your dose.


----------



## dontcare (Oct 6, 2008)

I'm on Zoloft.

I'm lucky I remembered my password.
I'm only taking one medication, it doesn't seem worth it to bother with that--but maybe I'm being too casual about my meds? Many times I've skipped doses because I was too lazy to get a cup of water and without water I can't properly swallow. There are all those warnings on the package but nothing has ever happened to me, thank God. 
I probably should take this a bit more seriously ...


----------



## UltraShy (Nov 8, 2003)

150 mg of Zoloft isn't going to hurt you, so don't worry. Keep in mind that the max recommended dose is 200 mg, so you're still lower than that, and a rare few take 300 mg (a level that I tried without success). Zoloft has only resulted in one documented case of death by OD in the entire world. Even suicidal folks who try to off themselves by eating the whole bottle can't manage to harm themselves, so you're certainly not going to do any harm by accidentally taking a second pill. No doubt many others have done the same by accident.

I'm quite familiar with the problem of "did I take a pill or not?" It's happened to me plenty of times over the years. I use a 7-day pill box so I know how much I've taken. I, for example, put 5 bars of Xanax in each day's section so I know how much I've taken that day. I don't follow any strict schedule, but it allows me to see that I'm averaging 10 mg a day over time.


----------



## UltraShy (Nov 8, 2003)

dontcare said:


> Many times I've skipped doses because I was too lazy to get a cup of water and without water I can't properly swallow.


You could learn to eat your pills. When I need a dose of Xanax and I'm out and don't have any readily available water I simply chew & swallow. I do the same when I wake up and don't want to get out of bed for a beverage to wash it down. I've done it so many times that the bitter taste of Xanax doesn't really bother me much any more.


----------



## IllusionOfHappiness (Sep 6, 2007)

I think I've done that before with propranolol - and I say think because honestly I never found out. I don't forget or get confused anymore, though. Just as soon as I wake up and right before bed are my times. Pretty simple.


----------



## dontcare (Oct 6, 2008)

IllusionOfHappiness said:


> Just as soon as I wake up and right before bed are my times. Pretty simple.


I guess this never happened to you, then. I have a set time, I only take it once a day, right before bed. So I filled a cup of water and drank it, but I couldn't remember if I had swallowed any pills along with it. I decided that for whatever reason I had just drunk the water, then filled another cup and swallowed some more pills. That jogged my memory and I was like, oh, yeah, I DID just take it. Thirty seconds ago.

I blame it on the meds. But then, I blame everything on the meds.


----------



## IllusionOfHappiness (Sep 6, 2007)

I blame my bad memory on my meds all the time.


----------



## dontcare (Oct 6, 2008)

UltraShy said:


> You could learn to eat your pills.


My grandmother chews her pills, because she doesn't know how to swallow them, and she says it's worse than chewing on raw horseradish. I think I'd just make myself gag. I'd better go for the water instead.


----------

