How Long Does Fioricet Stay in Your System?
Fioricet is a prescription drug often used to treat tension headaches that contains the following active ingredients:
- Acetaminophen 300 mg
- Butalbital 50 mg
- Caffeine 40 mg
Each of these three ingredients stays in the body for different lengths of time, meaning that Fioricet can stay in the system for up to eight days.
Duration of Effects of Fioricet
The effects of Fioricet last for about 2–4 hours. It is normally prescribed as one or two capsules taken by mouth every 4 hours.
Fioricet Half-Life
The half-life of a drug refers to the time it takes for half of the dose to be eliminated from the bloodstream. Each ingredient in Fioricet has a unique half-life:
- Acetaminophen: 2 hours
- Butalbital: 36 hours
- Caffeine: 6 hours
The body takes about five half-lives to eliminate a drug fully. Acetaminophen leaves the body in 10 hours and caffeine in 30 hours.
Butalbital has the longest half-life of the ingredients in Fioricet, so the elimination time of the drug is dependent on butalbital. Butalbital takes 180 hours, or almost eight days, to leave the body.
How Long Will Fioricet Show in a Drug Test?
Most standard drug tests will look for barbiturates, including the butalbital in Fioricet. Different types of drug tests may show traces of Fioricet for varying lengths of time.
Urine
Several factors affect the detection window of Fioricet, but most urine tests will pick up butalbital use 3–7 days from the last dose.
Blood
Butalbital has a very long half-life and is detectable in blood for roughly 8 days. However, blood tests are not frequently used to detect drug use because they are expensive and invasive.
Saliva
Butalbital, one of the main active ingredients in Fioricet, is detectable in saliva for 2–3 days.
Hair
All drugs have a similar window of detection in hair tests. During use, butalbital deposits into hair follicles and becomes locked in the hair. Most tests take 1.5 centimeters (cm) of hair because Fioricet can be detected in hair for 90 days.
Factors Affecting How Long Fioricet Stays in Your System
There are several factors that influence how long Fioricet stays in your system, including:
- Amount used
- Frequency of use
- Age
- Overall health
The detection window for Fioricet is most affected by how much of the drug someone uses and how often. Butalbital takes a long time to metabolize, so it will accumulate after only a few doses and remain detectable in the body for sometimes over a week.
False Positives for Fioricet
Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) like ibuprofen and naproxen can trigger false positives for butalbital, but this happens less than 1% of the time.
A positive drug test will usually be sent to another lab for a confirmation test called gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). GC-MS tests are very sensitive and specific, so they will not typically report false-positives.
