C5: NOW YOU KNOW (ABOUT MEDICINE): THE PROPER USES OF CAPSULES

 

Hello friends,

Welcome to another step in the class without walls of getting better, learning goes beyond the walls in the class. The class without walls is the platform where having knowledge is considered as taking responsibility. yes, I mean so what's the point of having knowledge and not being applied or shared. In this step I would like to share my knowledge with regard to uses of capsules.

Recently, a friend of mine reached out to me with the question of why some medical pills have colored shells? well, since I am a pharmaceutical science student, I will answer it with more details as I have seen some misuse associated with those “colored pills”, professionally we call them capsules. So, in this article, I will cover the basic applied science of capsules and Do’s and Don’ts when taking them .(language used is very simple)  

To answer the basic question, some drugs have color for marketing purposes, to make them attractive and rememberable to their customers, especially kids. For the case of capsules, they have shells for the medical benefits that I will discuss further below. Capsule’s shell also may serve to mask the bad taste or smell of drugs during swallowing them, hence enables avoiding uncomfortable experiences during swallowing them. For more details please hold my hand in the few paragraphs.

Basically, there are many ways we can take medicine into our bodies depending on the nature of the disease or drug. Commonly, orally in the form of tablets and pills, then there is injection and ointment e.g. lotions by applying them on the skin. almost in all cases, the drug must enter into the blood to produce its intended effect. Also, the drug to produce its benefit must be at an acceptable level in the blood. i.e too low levels no medical relief, and too much drug than acceptable levels in the blood system produces toxicity. Since drugs must be presented in the blood to produce medical benefits, that's why in the case of an emergency case where we need immediate medical relief, injection is often used because the drug is deposited directly into the blood system.

Fig. 1: Tablets on the left and capsules on the right (Photo credit: www.capsulcn.com/tablet-vs-capsule)

However, not all the time we take injections, thus we encounter tablets and capsules. although tablets and capsules in taking them into our bodies are more convenient compared to injection, The challenge with the tablet is that drugs must be absorbed in our intestine, and we have to take those tablets regularly to ensure acceptable drug levels in the blood. There is a problem with taking drugs regularly like three times a day that sometimes even myself we tend to forget. To overcome the problem of taking medicine many times, scientists have designed a clever drug delivery system.

The clever way is that tablets are replaced by capsules. It is important to mention that Capsules have shells, unlike tablets which are naked. capsule’s shell is made up of special material designed such that the dose contained in the swallowed capsule is slowly released in the stomach or small intestine. Since the dose is slowly released, therefore one can take a large dose drug contained in the capsules whose content is slowly released to sustain acceptable drug levels for the whole day instead of taking multiple doses in a day.

 MISUSE OF CAPSULES

Provided that the storage condition and state of the drug are okay, misuse happens when the capsule’s shell is removed. I have met some people thinking capsule’s shell is just like other decoration, hence shell can be removed and drug swallows independent, practice is absolutely wrong, shell are part of the safe drug delivery system. Those shells are there to ensure a slow release of the drug from the dose to the digestive tract for absorption. So if a particular dose of medicine is taken without shells, it means a huge dose which is supposed to be taken several times is now is all released in the stomach at once. this is dangerous because drug levels absorbed into the blood might go beyond the acceptable levels to cause toxicity (toxicities of drugs discussed here ). For the case of prescription drugs taken in capsules like omeprazole used in treating ulcers,  the action of removing shell might lead to serious consequences like severe abdominal pain.

Proper uses of capsules (Image source: Shutterstock)

The proper way to use capsules doses is to swallow them as they are. Hence, DO NOT TAKE THE DRUGS OUT OF THE SHELL AND SWALLOW THE CONTENT OF THE CAPSULES INDEPEDENTLY, UNLESS A PATIENT HAS BEEN ADVISED BY PHYSICIAN TO DO SO.

That’s it, friends, now you know! For more questions, opinions, suggestions. Please leave them in the chat box.

On your way of building better health through medicines,

Masota.