Easy way to know you have taken your meds & not double dosed

[CDreamer]

If in a foil pack - Use a Sharpie to mark Morning & Night & days of the week.

Use a pill box & put all of your weeks supply in the marked day of the week - once a week.

[pottypete1]

Fine if you actually remember to go and fine the tablets in the first place. 🤭

Pete

[CDreamer in reply to pottypete1]

Then you have an alarm to remind you.....👍.

It works for - now did I or did I not take it? Which is my biggie.

[pottypete1 in reply to CDreamer]

Used to use an alarm but kept turning it off and then forgetting.

Most days I am fine with routine but if things are not routine it all goes wrong from time to time.

Pete

[Wightbaby in reply to pottypete1]

Big Ben...6 'o' clock news......drop everything...take my Warfarin!!!

[wilsond]

Great idea! Thank you

[seasider18 in reply to wilsond]

Used to take mine when I put the potatoes on.

[Jay10]

An excellent idea. The best ideas are the simple ones. Thanks for posting.

I am lucky I only take 1 BP pill a day and they are blister packed with the day on them.

[JaneFinn]

Brilliant, thanks CDreamer 💜

I need to amalgamate both your ideas and take a sharpie to my pill boxes, as the words indicating the day & morning/night have worn off! Xx

[ILowe]

I have learned to hate blister packs, except for several emergency sets of three days supply which I keep in various places, including my purse. Not all of the blister packs are neatly arranged as in the photo. Sometimes blister packs are useful. Abroad, last year, I broke my arm. After the operation to the surprise of the surgeon I produced my evening meds without having to ask someone to go home and get them. This saved a pile of frustration and fuss. But, for routine use blister packs are a pain. I often lose the tablets on the table or floor when popping them out.

I much prefer the little bottles of pills and I have been known to empty a blister pack into one of them. But each of us need to find what works for them, and the more ideas kicking around the better, so thanks for posting.

[CDreamer in reply to ILowe]

I agree with you but so many meds come in blister packs these days.

[Surreychica_1 in reply to CDreamer]

I think it is to keep the tablet fresh. I used to break open the blister pack and put them into a tablet case market mon, tues wed etc however what I found was that some of the talents reduced to powder. So I do not do that any more. I use one of those pens which you can write on CDs to write the letter of the day and this is a great help.

[CDreamer in reply to Surreychica_1]

The pen is called a Sharpie & it writes on anything, great aren’t they? They come in different colours.

[irene75359 in reply to ILowe]

I lose pills popping them out too and am always in a panic trying to find them before my dog eats them up.

[CDreamer in reply to irene75359]

That is a concern....

[doodle68]

I find these little boxes are the best idea because they hold a whole days dose of medication....

amazon.co.uk/worldart-Medic...

I keep it by my toothpase so that when I clean my teeth night and morning I will be reminded about my medication...

[CDreamer in reply to doodle68]

They are great for the old pills that come in bottles, my husband uses that pack & loads once a week but you cannot get Dabigatran into those boxes. And you shouldn’t be taking meds out of blister packs anyway as some will start to dissolve in any sort of humidity. Another one of mine mine crumbles if exposed to air.

[doodle68 in reply to CDreamer]

Hi CD I put in one week at a time in the boxes and have never had any problems.

I have to cut my 5 Nebivalol in half anway which is a fiddle and would leave me with half a tablet in the foil every day so doing a week at a time seems a good option.

I actually do two weeks at once but leave one box in the medicine cupboard

[ILowe]

I am told that in Spain the pharmacists will usually offer to put the pills in bottles for you if you want. They have a little machine for it. Some machines are better than others. When I had a temporary job abroad I needed to take a year's supply of warfarin with me, which meant hundreds of small tablets. It was quite a job taking it out of the blister packs.

[CDreamer in reply to ILowe]

I bet it did. I’m sure some meds don’t need to be in blister packs.

The pharmacists in Ireland will do the same and if you are disabled some of the smaller independents here in the UK will transfer into daily, weekly or monthly boxes if you are travelling - but I’ve seen them actually repackage them into - another blister pack just one with all your tablets for one day in each blister!

I take Pyridostigamine bromide and it won’t tolerate being out of its bottle for more than a few hours - they have a funny moisture capture cap to prevent them breaking down and the pharmacists are not allowed to split the bottles or repackage them.

[ILowe]

P.. . Bromide is a special case. Most tablets tolerate well being put into bottles. I fill up pill boxes weekly. I have experimented with different models. the cheap ones all fall open when you drop them. Some models, slightly larger, have a button. There is even a model with a button on it that breaks up into seven boxes, so when you go out for the evening you only need to take one small box.

But it is a fiddly ritual each week putting all the pills in the right boxes. I can see the value of leaving that to a skilled alert assistant at the pharmacist, though why they waste plastic on blister packs still escapes me when larger pill boxes which will take the large pills exist, and you can get them so you have one box divided up into times of day.

[MarkS]

That's what I do with warfarin. I mark the day of the week (M, Tu, W, etc) on the foil of the 5mg tablets for the following fortnight with a permanent marker. Then I I take the other tablets (3mg and 1mg as required plus Vit K2) at the same time. It hasn't failed in the 10 years I've been taking warfarin. I still start my fortnightly run on a Mon evening as I always have.

However I still have to remember what day of the week it is and in 10 years time...😀

[Tudee]

I’m going to use this one, sometimes the best ideas are the simplest, thank you CDreamer. Dee

[WhitstableWanderer]

I'm like one of Pavlov's dogs now, take two pills with breakfast and three with dinner, automatic response.

[Rosemaryb1349]

I started using a device for removing pills from blister packs. Its plastic and obtainable from chemists. It works with any size and shape and after it pops the pills out of their packs they slide into the chute so they can be tipped out into your palm or straight into a pill box. If I could work out how to photograph mine and put it on here using my phone I would but technology defeats me sometimes.

[Hidden]

Got a pill box so much better then in the tablet boxes when the day is empty i v tookthem

[LaceyLady]

Great idea, except with mine! The Flecainaide tiny dots all random 😳