Tegretol in blood

[email hidden] (cihan) wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Does anyone know how long beforehand you should stop taking carbamezapine (Tegretol) for it not to
show up in your blood test?

Cihanbey, Tegretol has a half-life of 20 to 60 hours. That means roughly that a person will
eliminate about half the tegretol in his or her system in one to three days. This is even faster in
people who have been taking Tegretol for a long time. Their livers are more efficient at processing
the medication. To answer your question, though, it is important to know how sensitive a test you
are considering. If the test is highly sensitive, it may be able to detect blood tegretol in the
blood for very many days. If the test is not very sensitive, it might be negative after only a few
half-lives. I realize that this is not a very straightfoward answer, but the question can not be
answered unless you know what test you are considering.

good luck,
- jc

p.s. this might not be the most appropriate forum for this question. This group should be mostly
about medical education. all the best to you in your studies,
- jc