Taking My Pills on Time

[jesse_the_k]

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?

Comments

[muccamukk]

I only have to take morning ones, so I have a daily to-do list reminder called "Is the radio turned up?" which also reminds me to check if the radios are turned up.

And now I have an image of a friendly radio

[jesse_the_k]

gently yelling, "Hey Mucca! Take your pills!"

When I'm on vacation

[muccamukk]

and don't have to worry about radios being turned up, I think of as turning my brain up every morning.

[emceeaich]

cynthia1960 is trying the pill reminders in the iOS Health app. I need to get a system in place, because the mornings are when I go tearing off on other things and forget my meds.

I checked out the iOS Health app

[jesse_the_k]

...and those reminders are entirely too discreet for me. I unconsciously swipe notification banners into dust.

One of the collateral impacts of chronic pain is my superpower for ignoring alarms.

May she find something excellent, and you as well!

[kalmn]

My pillbox is next to my toothbrush, and thanks to a bad case of strep in high school I always brush my teeth, and then I see my pillbox.

Wow

[jesse_the_k]

I was today years old when I learned there's a connection between strep and cavities!

Re: Wow

[kalmn]

Oh! There isn't, in particular, but the strep was bad enough so that everything got fuzzy, and brushing my teeth was the only way to get rid of it. That, and antibiotics once I was able to see the doctor.

[mdlbear]

Up until now I've gotten away with a pair of 7-compartment pill sorters, for morning and night-time. Now that I have four 250mg pills that have to be taken an hour before a meal, a 5mg one to be taken with food, and a set of exercises to do, it's gotten more complicated. I'll probably need to set up a checklist of some sort.

Best of luck!

[jesse_the_k]

Every passing year adds just one more thing to the routine.

[jesse_the_k]

azurelunatic below suggested the Medisafe app, which offers a free trial and super-precise timing options, as well as symptom trackers, diary and very very silly alerts.

[cmcmck]

I only have two to take plus a vit supp so they get stuck in a little tin which Itake down with me to breakfast.

Little tins are so lovely

[jesse_the_k]

...I'm a big fan of all the Altoid editions. What kind do you use?

Re: Little tins are so lovely

[cmcmck]

It's a lttle very worn, round tin that a very old girl friend got for me when I first went onto oestrogen at 18 and she sent it with a card saying 'for the smarties'! :o)

Re: Little tins are so lovely

[jesse_the_k]

Ha!

[pauraque]

Fortunately(?) I get physical symptoms very quickly if I miss meds, so the negative reinforcement seems to keep me on track without any external reminders.

That double-edged

[jesse_the_k]

sword is certainly unmissable.

[replyhazy]

I might have to go to a pill box setup soon. After we renovated the bathroom I had to store my prescriptions slightly differently than before, which has led to the following problem:

1. Take pill #1
2. Take pill #2
3. Become distracted by some thought of something I need to do today, or by spots on the faucet, or indeed by anything at all
4. Stare at pill bottle number 2 and wonder if I actually took it, or whether I'm remembering yesterday...

And considering there are actually pill bottles 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, I have many chances to become distracted. The only thing that has helped so far is to do "mise en place" -- when I start taking pills, I take them all out of the cabinet. As I take the pill I put the bottle away. If the bottle is still out I have not taken it yet.

I use a similar mise en place

[jesse_the_k]

when baking. I set out all my various flour bags and spices and such, and then turn on their heads after I add each to the bowl.

(Which didn't prevent me from adding baking soda instead of cornstarch to my cranberry-blueberry ketchup. My, that sure bubbled!)

The pillbox approach does require 30 minutes weekly to load up 7 of them, but that also consolidates all the refill requests.

Not having to wonder about whether I've taken something decrements my mental load, leaving a little more room for more rewarding wonderments.

Re: I use a similar mise en place

[replyhazy]

My real drawback on pill boxes is how big my darn pills are! In the morning I take 3 huge gabapentin pills as well as some giant fiber capsules. When I travel I can never put these in a pillbox because they just won't fit! They have to travel separately.

Re: I use a similar mise en place

[jesse_the_k]

Gabapentins are huge.

This is one of the many advantages of Neuhauser Pharmacy! I brought in the largest pill stack (which also included Gabapentin) and asked Peg to order seven 4-a-day container which would fit.

[jenett]

At this point, I have meds at three points in the day (one when I wake up, 45+ minutes plus before any food or drink, then breakfast and dinner, plus one weekly injection that's last thing at night on Friday.)

I have a pill case with a smaller interior case for each day with two slots. It lives right in front of my keyboard, so it's always handy. When I'm in the office, I pop that day's case out and bring it with me (since I take the pills when I eat breakfast, which I do in the office.)

The first thing in the morning pills are a) tiny and b) my thyroid pills. They live in a separate case with an old-fashioned patent medicine style label that reads "Zombie Cure" with some other text, which makes me crack up every time I see it. (Because when my thyroid is not suitably medicated, that's certainly what I feel like.)

The injection has to live in the fridge until I take it (or a couple of hours before) so I grab it when Ihave dinner on Friday and it sits in the corner of my desk until bedtime.

I use Round on my phone for a reminder, which I like because it will do multiple reminders over a given time period if you want.

[jesse_the_k]

ZOMBIE CURE is just the thing for thyroid meds!

[yourlibrarian]

That's an interesting idea about the song!

[jesse_the_k]

Works well for me.

The only drawback: iOS 10 and earlier had a bug where these system-level alarms sounded even when the device was turned off. I discovered this at a memorial service, of course.

[sheafrotherdon]

I have pills I take in a morning when I get up, and pills I take at night right before I go to sleep, and both sorters live on the bedside table. It's a little more complicated when I travel, because I can't always guarantee I'll have a bedside table, and I have absolutely forgotten to take things without them staring at me. Alarms are a good idea!

Traveling

[jesse_the_k]

adds an extra level of complicated for me. I look for my pillbox in a certain place. They'd wrest my bedside table from my cold dead hands.

[mific]

My system's very similar. I use small containers from past take-outs labelled with day of the week, plus a daily iPhone alarm. Have to use the actual alarm as music would be too easy to ignore!



I label the alarm "pills & garage door" as my garage is my potting shed as well and I need to remember to close it at dusk as it connects to the flat. All this is easier for me as I only have once a day meds (2 of them) and the rest are supplements I choose to take.

Those are adorable!

[jesse_the_k]

(Pictures don't show up in emailed replies, so I was trying to imagine how you'd find your meds in a meal box like this one)

[azurelunatic]

I have a weekly case with one similar four-chamber case per day, which can fit several large pills in addition to lots of small ones. I also have a few seven-compartment boxes of various sizes: one for my bedtime pills, one for the OTC part of my daily pain regimen, one specially labeled one for my ADHD meds. Plus a small four-chamber box for the pills for various sorts of digestive difficulty, and a fairly old small prescription bottle that I decant one day's worth of prescription pain pills into at a time, or a few more days if I'll be on the road.

The weekly case gets pills divided into: before/with breakfast; after breakfast & very after-breakfast; before/with dinner; and finally after dinner. I fill it out of a stack of AM/PM weekly cases that I keep in my desk drawer and load once every month or three. (I write the dates on those cases in grease pencil, so I can make alterations for upcoming appointments if necessary, like taking out the baby aspirin before anything that involves an incision.)

On my phone I use the Medisafe app, which I have programmed to ask me "Do you know where your pillbox is?" and make a pill-rattling noise at me. The prompts repeat every 15 minutes for 10 attempts, until I mark the thing taken or skipped.

It lets me mark a med as discontinued and will stop reminding me until I mark it as active again, which is good for the meds that I use for chemo side effects. It also lets me log doses of various meds that I don't take on any particular schedule. It lets me define custom meds as well as things it has in its database; I have "morning pills 1", "morning pills 2" and so forth for certain groups of meds that don't need separate enumeration, which I also like for privacy reasons. It also reminds me about my physical therapy.

I might possibly be back to a meds point where I could go back to a few alarms, but I like having the confirmation that yes, I did mark such and such a med as taken at such and such a time.

[jesse_the_k]

What a thorough arrangement! The Medisafe app sounds excellent — and it's now available on iOS.

https://medisafeapp.com

I like that it lets you make a timed check-in for symptoms as well as a diary. The talking alerts are a gas … the NY Mom, "take your meds! You don't write, you don't call, at least you should take your meds!" made me snort with delight. (And I'm no longer attending meetings where that would be entirely disruptive, although entirely disruptive was my brand when I went to meetings.)

[peachpai]

I have a big seven day, three compartment per day pillbox and every day is a different color. It's very cheerful, I like seeing the colors! I don't generally have trouble remembering to take my daily morning and night pills, but for short-term stuff like antibiotics or steriods I use phone alarms since they often don't match the timing of the dailies.

[jesse_the_k]

Rainbow pill boxes sound very cheerful (and easier to spot on the table).

[kalmn]

I have an alarm earlier than I need to get out of bed for good, and when it goes off, I get up, feed the cats, use the facilities, take my meds, and then go back to sleep for 30 minutes. This is actually secretly brilliant because my ADHD meds are in there, so when my alarm goes off 30 minutes later they have kicked in and I am actually awake.

Nighttime meds, I take them when I brush my teeth before I go to bed.

Mid day meds are something I try to avoid.

[jesse_the_k]

I like your secretly brilliant plan, and I stand ready to ward off any dastardly mid day meds attempting to invade your house.

[j00j]

Most of my pills are morning, so a consistent location for my pill box plus alarms (particularly on the weekend when I'm more likely to be off schedule) does the trick for me. Bedside pillbox for allergy pills during the time of year (most of it now, annoyingly) that I'm taking an extra at night.

I'm using the iOS reminders for my rotating cast of topicals (I've got one that's daily, one that's 2x/week, another different one that's 2x/week...). I can remember I need a topical as part of my bedtime routine but not which ones, so the reminders show me WTF I'm supposed to be using, because I can't put goo in a pill box.

Okay now I'm imagining

[jesse_the_k]

a lovely snail-form container which dispenses goo by rolling across your skin.