6 replies to this topic

[setotitan]

I just got my order today from Smart Powders, everything was as promised, and shipped lighting fast I ordered Thursday evening and got it today Saturday! So anyone looking for a good site do check them out. However I did have one issue. One of the items I ordered was DHEA powder 25 Grams. I see the average serving size is 25mg under that it says 600mg in 1/4 teaspoon. So I'd need to measure our 1/24th of 1/4 teaspoon. As you can imagine that's pretty tricky to measure. I've also read of bad side effects if you go over the recommended amount so I want to get my dose correct. Does you have any advice on how I could get 25mg dosages out of this powder with any degree of accuracy? I'm stumped here. Will most likely order the caps in the future but ordering the powder was 1000 does for $7, and no that's not a typo. Anyways was hoping someone had a trick they used that could help me out.. I'm all ears!

[tritium]

I think it will be almost impossible to accurately measure 25mg without a scale.
I bought one of these for measuring milligrams:
http://cgi.ebay.com/...=item415837418a

The reading fluctuates a lot, but I think it's fairly accurate to about +-0.003mg as long as you let it sit for a few minutes to warm up after you turn it on to let the reading stabilize.

Edited by tritium, 30 April 2011 - 08:08 PM.

[Raptor87]

Sorry hijacking this thread a bit:P

First my answer: get a scale or capsule machine.

Now for my Q:

I´ve been thinking on ordering some piracetam- powder from a seller on ebay. Problem is that Im afraid that the compound will be corrupt or something, maybe it´s washing detergent or something that´s gonna mess me up.

Aren´t you guy´s afraid when you are ordering stuff? How safe are these things?

Thanks for any replies.

[setotitan]

OK so I was doing some checking and I read about dissolving it in water. I know there's 600mg in 1/4 teaspoon. So follow my math here lemme know if this makes sense. The dose size is 25mg, so in 600mg that's 24 doses in 1/4 teaspoon. So dissolve 1/4 teaspoon into 24oz of water, then get a dropper, shake mixture before dosing, then take 1oz with the dropper for each dose. Make sense?

EDIT: DHEA is not water soluble. Looks like I'm gonna need a scale. Should have just bought so damn capsules instead of trying to measure 25mg's of powder every day. Guess I'll just run my finger around the rim of the jar and lick that. Prob about 1/96th of a teaspoons worth there. HAhAHha!

Edited by setotitan, 30 April 2011 - 09:12 PM.

[MrSpud]

Even with a scale you wouldn't be able to accurately just measure out a dose. You'd need to make either a powder trituration or a liquid dilution like you were describing above before you realized it isn't water soluble.

If it was water soluble, you would weigh a gram into a volumetric flask and then add water, put the stopper on and shake it do dissolve it. Then you'd open the flask and add water up to the volume mark on the flask and then put the stopper in and shake it. Then you'd be able to pipette out an accurate dose where the amount would be either 1 mg per ml or 10 mg per ml, depending on the size of the volumentric flask you used. But of course, it isn't water soluble, so that wouldn't work.

To make a powder dilution you would weigh a gram into a baggie and then weigh a gram of an inert filler powder into the baggie and then shake and smash it around through the baggie to break any lumps. Then you would open the bag and add a couple more grams and shake it and smash it around through the baggie again. Keep doubling it until you get to the desired dilution of powder, something like 1 gram active to 99 grams of powder would dilute it quite nicely and result in a 1% trituration with a uniform dispersion of the active. Then you would be able to weigh 2.5 grams of powder and have 25mg of active.

Basically you don't want to trust the last number or 2 on the scale you have if you want accuracy. If the scall reads in down to 0.001g I wouldn't trust anything less than 0.1 gram to be accurate and 1 gram would be even more accurate. But this is only if you really care about accuracy.

If the active you are working with is prone to having a static charge, it helps to put some of the inert filler in the bag first and shake it and knead it around in the bag first to remove the static charge from the baggie. Otherwise the active will adhere to the baggie and through off the trituration.

You can also determine how much of the inert filler fits into a size 00 capsule and make your trituration so that that amount will give you the dose of the active you want. If the active dose is less than about 100mg or so then the trituration will have just about the same density as the original inert filler powder and you will be able to make accurate capsules.

[MrSpud]

For those interested, check out http://pharmlabs.unc...ions/method.htm to learn more about this

[nezxon]

OK so I was doing some checking and I read about dissolving it in water. I know there's 600mg in 1/4 teaspoon. So follow my math here lemme know if this makes sense. The dose size is 25mg, so in 600mg that's 24 doses in 1/4 teaspoon. So dissolve 1/4 teaspoon into 24oz of water, then get a dropper, shake mixture before dosing, then take 1oz with the dropper for each dose. Make sense?

EDIT: DHEA is not water soluble. Looks like I'm gonna need a scale. Should have just bought so damn capsules instead of trying to measure 25mg's of powder every day. Guess I'll just run my finger around the rim of the jar and lick that. Prob about 1/96th of a teaspoons worth there. HAhAHha!

Getting the equipment to properly measure powders does have a startup cost, but it's 1/2 or less the cost of buying supplements prepackaged. Here's the equipment I recommend:
Box of Sterile Gloves - $20
Gram Scale (0.01g resolution [aka 1/100th]) - $25
Capsule Making Kit (includes 1000 capsules) - $20 (for DHEA 25mg, I'd suggest size 4 capsules. Larger number is smaller size.)

Including the $7 cost of DHEA powder that's $72 for 1000 caps; If you were to buy 1000 pre-filled capsules of DHEA, it could run you $165 (at $9.95 for 60 caps). Even if you include the cost of ALL the equipment, it's still less than half the price of buying pre-filled capsules. After the cost of equipment is paid, you're talking about paying 1/20th the cost.

I think what your facing is the disappointment of getting a good deal but not already having on-hand everything you need to make the experience go smoothly. Don't let it deter you, just get the equipment you need. It takes me about 3 minutes to measure out powder and fill 50 caps, so you could easily have 1000 caps done in about an hour, and you don't have to fill them all at once so you could break up the time by just doing 100 caps each day. To make it easier, there are youtube videos that demonstrate using the capsule kits. In your situation the most important thing is to get to a place where you don't feel like it's a hassle, because that frustration will quickly lead to either throwing money at pre-filled products or abandoning the idea entirely.

Buying bulk powders is cost effective even if you're only taking a single supplement.