Basic math question, can you solve for me please?

[mathtt]

This may be basic to some but to me I sometimes can't even do the simplest of equations.

I'm tapering off a medication with 65 pills and want it to be as smooth as possible with 65 pills left and the dosage is 2 mg/day.

So how much should I decrease my dosage per day in order to have an even decrement down to 0??

get my drift?
thanks.

 

[Scott Huish]

Not exactly. Assuming you take 1 pill a day, you can't exactly take 1 less the next day. Need some more info here.

 

[vllgv]

mg/pill?

 

[mathtt]

They can be broken down into .25 increments, or even .125 So starting with a 2mg dosage, the next day will be something like 1.75, then next 1.5, but I'm looking for something more specific That goes from exactly 65mg to 0, accross the longest number of days. I can't calculate a dosage regimen without a curve either upward or downwards. Don't worry about the amount of pills I have, go by mg... (some of them are 1mg pills some are .5)

 

[Scott Huish]

Assuming an even drop every single day.

If you drop .125 mg every day, you will be at 0 on the 520th day.

And to get this answer, you just divide your 65 mg by the amount you are dropping the dosage each day.

 

[mathtt]

Thats what I thought at first too... but you have to take into account that whilst dropping .125 mg I will still be taking (2mg-.125), then the next day (2mg-(1.25*2)) . So basically I need an algorithm that calculate this, I figured a spreadsheet formula would work thats why i posted here in the first place.

 

[Scott Huish]

It should not be 1.25*2 it should be .125*2

But in that case, you would drop to 0 at the end of 16 days.
But you have 65 pills, therefore, you need to make each dosage last 4 days (roughly) before you drop.

So, it will then take 65 days, you will drop .125 mg every 5th day.

In A2: 2
In B2: =$A$1-(0.125*INT(COLUMN(A1)/4))

Copy across to BM2

 

[mathtt]

It should not be 1.25*2 it should be .125*2

You are right

thank you very much, I'm impressed.