It's a problem so many of us have had: picking up the wrong bottle, absent-mindedly taking meds twice, forgetting to take them at all, getting completely befuddled about which ones should be taken with food. So I thought we could do with a thread for discussing strategies for taking meds safely and getting the dose right. I'm in a bit of a rush, so I may well start this off and then add things later.
My main strategies are:
1) I keep a spreadsheet diary for symptoms and medication, including supplements. I check off every med/supplement I take every day, and I note down whenever my regime changes or I take something on a one-off basis (e.g. "Started Vit C 1000mg. Took 2 co-codamol/valium for headache.")
2) I have seven containers for meds, each holding four compartments. You can get them in different sizes, and I've had to spend a long time on eBay sourcing some really large ones. One day a week I sit down with my support worker and we fill up the meds boxes for the week. A useful trick we've learned is to keep all the meds in one cardboard box, and then when we are filling up the meds boxes, we take all the bottles out, put them on the table, and put each one back into the overall box when it's been done. That way we are far less likely to forget one of the many bottles. This is only for things you take on a daily basis, it's no use for things you have to take on an as-needed basis. I get used to having one of these meds boxes around every day, and when I take the last dose for the day I put the empty box back in my bedside drawer and take out the next day's box, leaving it by my laptop.
3) For my electrolyte drink, I have a different method. I have just been losing weight, and am continuing to log what I eat using dieting software (Fitday PC in my case, though it's probably not the best around). I have made up a "custom food" for the electrolyte drink, after putting all the ingredients into the system. Every time I have a dose, it gets marked down onto the diet diary, so that I can keep up with how many doses I've had per day.
4) The hardest thing is meds taken on an as-needed basis. Sometimes I jot them down on the computer, using the Sticky Notes software. For instance, I was on co-codamol and buccastem after my recent surgery. The notes on the laptop would usually read something like, "Sun - Co-cod 11, 3, 7, 11.30. Bucc 11, 7", and then the next day I would delete it and write on top.
5) Alternatively, I have sometimes used a single-day meds box which has an alarm built in. I used this when I was on co-codamol and tramadol for a month with calcific tendinitis, for instance. I believe it holds up to seven doses per day, and you can set an alarm for each one. You do have to remember to fill up the box again at bedtime for the next day. The other snag was that one day the alarm randomly started going off when the box was somewhere in the depths of my bedside cabinet. It took hours and hours of infuriating beeping before we worked out what it was, where it was, and managed to turn it off.
6) I have been known to rewrite the name of a drug, along with its dosage and/or what it is for, on the box in large lettering, as I have trouble reading the prescription label and the pharmacy won't do large print. Sometimes I mess around with colour-coding as well, e.g. red for painkillers.
My main strategies are:
1) I keep a spreadsheet diary for symptoms and medication, including supplements. I check off every med/supplement I take every day, and I note down whenever my regime changes or I take something on a one-off basis (e.g. "Started Vit C 1000mg. Took 2 co-codamol/valium for headache.")
2) I have seven containers for meds, each holding four compartments. You can get them in different sizes, and I've had to spend a long time on eBay sourcing some really large ones. One day a week I sit down with my support worker and we fill up the meds boxes for the week. A useful trick we've learned is to keep all the meds in one cardboard box, and then when we are filling up the meds boxes, we take all the bottles out, put them on the table, and put each one back into the overall box when it's been done. That way we are far less likely to forget one of the many bottles. This is only for things you take on a daily basis, it's no use for things you have to take on an as-needed basis. I get used to having one of these meds boxes around every day, and when I take the last dose for the day I put the empty box back in my bedside drawer and take out the next day's box, leaving it by my laptop.
3) For my electrolyte drink, I have a different method. I have just been losing weight, and am continuing to log what I eat using dieting software (Fitday PC in my case, though it's probably not the best around). I have made up a "custom food" for the electrolyte drink, after putting all the ingredients into the system. Every time I have a dose, it gets marked down onto the diet diary, so that I can keep up with how many doses I've had per day.
4) The hardest thing is meds taken on an as-needed basis. Sometimes I jot them down on the computer, using the Sticky Notes software. For instance, I was on co-codamol and buccastem after my recent surgery. The notes on the laptop would usually read something like, "Sun - Co-cod 11, 3, 7, 11.30. Bucc 11, 7", and then the next day I would delete it and write on top.
5) Alternatively, I have sometimes used a single-day meds box which has an alarm built in. I used this when I was on co-codamol and tramadol for a month with calcific tendinitis, for instance. I believe it holds up to seven doses per day, and you can set an alarm for each one. You do have to remember to fill up the box again at bedtime for the next day. The other snag was that one day the alarm randomly started going off when the box was somewhere in the depths of my bedside cabinet. It took hours and hours of infuriating beeping before we worked out what it was, where it was, and managed to turn it off.
6) I have been known to rewrite the name of a drug, along with its dosage and/or what it is for, on the box in large lettering, as I have trouble reading the prescription label and the pharmacy won't do large print. Sometimes I mess around with colour-coding as well, e.g. red for painkillers.