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Loose_Asparagus5690 t1_iuljzpw wrote

Reply to comment by Huumeidentestaaja in Are gelcaps more bioavailable than tablets or pills? (Context: diphenhydramine) by ExoticPlastic3330

Oh, if the gelcap has Diphendydramine HCl then it's not the case about the active ingredient but the delivery form.
When you take an immediate-release tablet, it usually takes 45-60 minutes to slowly disintergrate and release >75% of the active ingredient. That is "immediate" but still slow compare to softgel capsule.
Once a softgel's shell break down, probably in 10-15 minutes, it'll release all of the lipophilic content inside. The content is almost always lipophilic because water would breakdown gelatin. As I said before, lipophilic stuffs absorb better via GI tract (especially at the small colon), so not only the softgel release it content faster, the content itself would absorbs faster. This result in the faster peak of active ingredient concentration in blood. I think that's the reason why it feels better for OP to use the softgel form.

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ExoticPlastic3330 OP t1_iunn8gd wrote

It's more than just it working faster though, I mean it straight up works way better compared to tablet or the powdered pill. Those weren't working, so I got the softgels that I'd been taking while on vacation which I'd run out of and the difference was huge.

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Loose_Asparagus5690 t1_iupb2s5 wrote

In this case, faster is better though. Let's assume that your body needs X amount of the active ingredient in blood to induce the desired effect - which called the therapeutic concentration. While both the gelcap and tablet release the same amount of drug over time. The tablet may takes too long it wouldn't even reach your body's therapeutic concentration, since your liver enzymes would break it down fast enough to keep the drug concentration down. The gelcap, on the other hand, release the drug fast enough to overwhelm the breakdown rate of drug in your body, which raised the drug concentration above the therapeutic concentration, thus induce the desired effect - tinnitus gone.

You can look at graph 2.6 in this link to have a better visualisation. The green line would represent the plasma concentration released by the gelcap and the red line would resemble the tablet.https://www.pharmacy180.com/article/bioavailability-847/

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