The toxic dose of a medicine can be taken at once or it may be taken over a certain period of time, For example, it is possible that an individual takes the usual dose of a drug multiple times over the period of few hours.
A drug overdose is called staggered if all the tablets or capsules were not taken simultanously or within 1 hour.
For example, fatal dose of paracetamol is 12 grams, if an individual takes 5 tablets (equal to 2.5 grams) at 8:00 PM and 5 tablets (2.5 grams) at 10:00 PM and 10 tablets at 11:30 PM (equal to 5 grams), and 5 tablets at 2:00 AM, the total dose he has taken during the period of 6 hours is 12.5 grams, which is a highly toxic dose, but the different doses are taken over the period of 6 hours not simultaneously, such type of overdose is called Staggered overdose.
