Taking My Pills on Time

My medication alarm system combines a very low tech device—a four chamber pill box—with my iPhone’s system alarms. I set a daily repeating alarm labelled with the pill chamber number.

The key innovation is that, instead of a built-in alarm, I use a song. Sometimes it takes me a while to reach my pillbox—the length of the song doesn’t let the task slip from my mind. (It also is less annoying than a repetitive ding dong!) If I don’t snooze the song, iOS repeats it at least three times — fifteen minutes of "Take your pills, already!"

I choose instrumental songs, so as not to impose my lyric tastes on random strangers. I switch to different songs every season, since I can become ear blind to the same tune after too many repetitions.

My pharmacy sold me this 85 cm x 35 cm x 25 cm4-chamber pillbox in rigid plastic. Each chamber has a hinged lid, labelled in braille. There’s a lock on the end that my arthritic fingers have no trouble releasing.

And of course there’s one more set of pills I have to take as I climb in to bed—that pillbox rests on my phone charger, which so far has been a foolproof reminder since I don’t want my baby brain to go unfed overnight.

What's your system like?