Think I muddled up my pills!!! A lesson to be learnt....

[suzieh]

Had a bit of panic 3 days ago....

Have got in the habit of always taking my 100mcg thyroxine when I wake up (I keep them next to my bed); followed by my Pred when I get downstairs

On this particular day I took my throxine as normal .... got up and went downstairs and got out Pills to take (pred should be 2 x 5mg and 2x 1mg = 12mg) knocked them back with a drink of water. Then noticed I had on the counter - spare open thyroxine ; and open pred packets - quite frankly I did not know which pills I had popped out or what I had taken - dose right or completely wrong??

If wrong it was a total of 300mcg thyroxine (i had already taken 100mcg on waking) and only 2mg of pred instead of 12mg?

Felt really worried so phoned my Dr - hoping to speak to him; the receptionist suggested I speak to the pharmacist. He reassured me saying it shouldn't be too dangerous for one day.........to look out for hot sweats;racing heart or pains and to say don't hesitate to contact Dr if feeling ill or experiencing these symptoms later. (These side effects were possibilities of a thyroxine overdose)

I did ask him if I should make myself sick and he said not to.

I took 2mg extra Pred as I felt worried about a lack of this all day and was scared about the possible drop from my normal 12 to 2mg. (I knew I had taken at least 2mg of Pred)

Tried to forget about it ..... did feel peculiar, out of sorts all day; tired and not very well; but at the same time jittery - but no really worrying symptoms as outlined above which would warrant medical help.

Yesterday and today - not feeling quite right; have a few pains; actually felt faint and ill yesterday am - had to sit down; today- tired and listless; hoping I will feel normal again tomorrow.

Has anyone else done a similar thing before? I was doing well up until making this stupid mistake

Lessons to be learnt

-Put all my pred into a daily dose dispenser and keep the spare thyroxine out of the way (They are in a box and foil strip exactly the same size as pred)

-Pay full attention at pill time!!

[iforget]

Oh my...I really empathise. Among my cocktail of daily drugs, I take 125 Thyroxine and one day I accidentally took 200 instead...that was not fun at all. I experienced the heart racing, dry mouth, tremors etc and it was scary and all I could do was wait it out. Thankfully the drug has a very short lifespan and so by the end of the day it started to even out a bit...but its not something I care to repeat.

Now I take all my meds out of the cabinet and place them on the counter. I take the necessary dose from each pack one at a time and put each pack back in the cabinet before picking the next one from the counter. I take all of those meds before I get the pred out of the packs - because I need to eat before I take the pred. So far this has worked well.

I am 100% sure that I would have felt out of sorts all day if I had been in your shoes.,The anxiety over the possible outcome would be enough to make me feel jittery and unwell. As you say, lesson learned. Glad you are okay .

[Loco99]

I've forgotten to take my cortisone a couple of times and got a reminder later in the day when I started to feel dreadful. I now have a daily dose dispenser. When I get up in the morning and am half awake, I sometimes can't remember if I've taken my pills or not, at least I can check in the dispenser to see if they are there or not. I hope you feel better soon.

[Annodomini]

Easily done. For that reason I keep the thyroxine upstairs with my 'waking up' meds; and the pred downstairs with my 'breakfast time' meds. When I'm away the 'waking up' ones are in one dispenser and the preds in another. On two occasions I have forgotten to take the preds but fortunately I'm now on a low dose (3) and I got away with it.

[bowler]

I have done the same thing with medications. I do have a weekly pill dispenser but like most of us we cant be bothered, so just take them from the packet.

Have you all noticed that pills seem to all come in the white form, and the packets are the same but just marked a different dose, all very confusing,

I did complain about it once, but was told it was cheaper.

When I first started on steroids, they were Red, 5mgs. Brown 2 half mgs .[ and they were coated!!]

[2watsons]

It would be a great help if steroids where in red --- brown --- etc as warfarin .

i am sure lots of people have done the same thing ,and all pills now seem to look the same i have often filled my pill box ,and when check it , may have missed one out ,all look the same ,all white.[pill box is a must ] Glad ok now .