I have real trouble remembering to take my preventer, recalling if i just took it once twice or none, and how many doses left. I've used a diary, an app, calendar reminders, task lists, pen and paper you name it. In my defence I have a small brain and I find it gets full quickly. Even in the 30 seconds between puffs I get distracted, think about work, my day, oh look a butterfly and thats it, memory of a goldfish. So anything separate from the inhaler and needing me manually updating the record is fallible. This means I miss doses, or take too many and that also kills my diary note of when the inhaler should run out if I'd taken the regular correct doses.
I have clenil modulite with a spacer and ventolin. The best option I have seen is something called a Doser which fixes on top, you enter the number of doses in a new canister and every squeeze it counts how many that day and how many left. It seems to only be available in the US. Has anyone got one and where did you get it, is it any good? Any other options?
In May I called up Propeller in the US just to play with the new technology. I have zero affiliation with them. They sent me bluetooth caps that look similar to the one above that works with their app on my phone. It tracks all your Ventolin usage including time of day. The best part is even if your phone is off it stores the info in the cap and the next time you sync up at catches up the list. Only issue was on one of my inhalers the gap between cartridge and case was catching on the rubber that grips it so I had to discontinue, but the other is still going happily.
As a stop gap until you get this, or as an alternative to it, you could try setting up an alarm system. I know someone who has to take numerous different types of medication at different times of the day and who has set up an alarm system (either on her mobile phone or on a timer) to remind her when to take her medication. I do likewise on my mobile phone for a medication I have been put on recently which I have to take midway through the morning; it's out of my usual routine and so easy to forget without that alarm.
If your preventer medication has a counting device you could use that to help you keep track of how many doses you have taken. I acknowledge that ventolin evohalers do not (in my experience) have a counter system - an appalling design flaw in my opinion and one which should have been rectified years ago.
Hope this is of some help - if only in the short term:-).
I have my preventer in the bathroom so take it as part of my getting washed in the morning and evening. I sometimes struggle to remember whether I have taken 1 or 2 puffs, so I take the cap off to take the first one, then leave the cap off until I have taken my second one (I put it on the side while I do something else). I do sometimes forget if I'm away and don't have everything in one room, so have to try and "invent a system" which works for where I am!!
I just write it down on a notebook that I keep with my inhaler. It works for me, but sometimes I think, I wrote it down, but did I actually use the inhaler!
Try doing a small ritual. When you take the 1st dose, put the inhaler in a different place. When you take the 2nd dose, put it in yet another place until you have finished your morning routine. When you see it, you'll know you've taken both, so put it back where it usually lives. Like all rituals, once you've started doing it, it gets easier as it goes along. It's cheaper than a machine!
I don't know how to get round the clenil, but for ventolin try the accuhaler which I much prefer as it is a powder you suck in so you know it's gone to the right place, but it also has a built in counter
Content on HealthUnlocked does not replace the relationship between you and doctors or other healthcare professionals nor the advice you receive from them.
Never delay seeking advice or dialling emergency services because of something that you have read on HealthUnlocked.
Designing a new inhaler. Your help and advice please
Being caught out without your inhaler.
Symptoms that go away without inhaler?
Help! How do I get over inhaler embarrassment at school??
