What Does 'Take Three Tablets Once Daily' Mean?

Hello and thank you for your question!

This is such a common question pharmacists get and I appreciate you bringing it up here (in fact, we answered a very similar question that can be found here).

It's always important if there is any confusion on how to take your medication, you check with your doctor or pharmacist.

Take Three Tablets Once Daily

If your prescription is written as 'take three tablets by mouth once daily', the intent is for you to take all three tablets at one time, as a single dose.

If your provider intended you to split the doses up three times throughout the day, the prescription would have been written as 'take one tablet by mouth three times daily.

Why Is This Important?

Three tablets once daily, versus one tablet three times daily, is a very important distinction, and taking your medicine the wrong way could have negative consequences.

When you take your dose all at once (three tablets in this case), you are going to be absorbing much more of the drug at one time, and the drug concentration in your blood will be that much higher.

Imagine, for example, you have a box of 3 cookies, each 300 calories.

If you eat three cookies all at one time, you are taking in 900 calories all at once.

If you split them up throughout the day, you would be taking in 300 calories every time you had one.

Even though the total amount you take in during the day is the same, when it comes to drugs, how much you take at a given time (i.e. your dose) is extremely important.

Every drug has an effective, or therapeutic, range.

In other words, the drug has to reach a certain concentration to be effective (this is especially true of antibiotics). Underdosing could cause the drug not to work. If you need to take three tablets at one time to reach a certain concentration of the drug in your blood, taking less could mean it won't be effective.

How Prescription Directions Are Set-Up

Prescription directions generally follow the following format:

• [Verb] + [Quantity] + [Dosage Form] + [Route Of Administration] + [Frequency]

In your example, we have:

• Take [Verb]
• Three [Quantity]
• Tablets [Dosage Form]
• By Mouth [Route of Administration]
• One time daily [Frequency]

It's certainly true that prescription directions aren't always set up like this, which can lead to confusion. Best practice is to follow the above format to lessen the risk of medication errors.

Final Words

Thanks again for reaching out to us! We hope to hear from you again soon.