Any chemists out there?

[Bill Marquardt]

Time release capsule -

As I understand it, time release medicines generally work over a time period based on the coatings applied to the granules inside the capsule.

But what about the gelatin capsule itself?

How long does it take for the capsule to dissolve? Is there a night-time capsule that dissolves over a longer period of time?

I need to know for a plot I am working on. Any help will be appreciated.

[Fortean]

The gelatin caps containing time-release and other medicines are really only meant to deliver it to the stomach; and, once there, the caps, themselves, will usually dissolve in about five to ten minutes.

[KYLLRelite]

Fortean's correct - about five minutes.

You could always go down to your local hippie-holistic-drugstore, buy the caps (or ask them for a few), then experiment. They dissolve , in water, in about ten minutes ... and in digestive fluids in about five minutes.

Once, my friends and I ate a bunch of shrooms we picked in the cow pasture. We all went on some pretty bad trips--I wanted to cut off my feet, forgot how to speak, understand English, forgot to breathe, etc. One friend told her mom and Mom rushed us all to the hospital, screaming, "You ate poison mushrooms" the entire way (Not a good thing to scream at kids tripping on shrooms). Anyway, they pumped our stomaches and the nurses gave us handfulls of charcoal capsules to soak up the residuals. The nurses told us that we'd start to feel better "in about 5 minutes ... when the charcoal activates."

Instead of eating the capsules, we ended up drawing black charcoal-pictures on their white bed sheets. They didn't care for our 'art' very much. They charged us for the sheets AND the capsules.


kyle