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

[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.