We have a system, built up over years, for keeping meds organised. Both of us havd to take meds three times a day. Do any of you have systems for this sort of thing?
Write down the daily meds and stick it on the wall, mostly in case someone who isn’t me has to do the meds. (And some days I’m not coping well enough to do the meds without the list anyway.)
Give the cat treats every time you do the meds. You might forget, but the cat won’t.
Hardware shops sell little plastic sets of drawers for different sizes of screws. They’re useful for keeping blister packs of pills in.
(K’s excellent idea) Ice-cube trays work well to dispense the meds into and keep the different medicines apart.
I have a box of cheap metal screw-top pillboxes. I fill some of them with meds, and write numbers on the top: odd for K, even for me. The numbers increase through the day.
G has thirteen tablets daily - 2 are twice daily, the rest once - but spread over three periods. On top of this he takes 8 non-prescription supplements!! (I also added charcoal capsules twice a day to help with his flatulence!! What a difference that made).
G used to put them together each week into daily boxes which I picked up on a visit to hospital years ago. Following his stroke his manual dexterity has declined and it was taking him over an hour to put them together each Sunday morning and I found he was getting confused and sometimes dropping them or spilling the containers as he slid the lids back in place. That meant grovelling around on the floor to find them before the dog did and then trying to identify each tablet as three are very similar size and have no markings on them (and all white!).
Eventually, I volunteered to do it for him. I made a spreadsheet listing each med and there are three columns so I - or anyone else - can see at a glance when each has to be taken (no more trying to decifer the label on a tiny box!). It’s become such a routine I can even pick up the right pack from the box where they are all kept without looking as I work through in the same order each time! The same with his supplements, I instinctively know which is which. I can put the whole lot together in about ten minutes!
It also means any variations get changed on the spreadsheet and I have that available should we need to call paramedics, or for any hospital visit.
The great thing about the spreadsheet is I mark the remaining stock as I put them up each week so I have a running total of what is left. No longer do we have the mad panic ‘oh I have run out of xyz’ and then the apologetic call to the GP asking for urgent 'script, which was becoming his norm! His worse habit was starting 2 or 3 blister packs instead of taking pills from one then starting the next - so it wasn’t easy to tell how many remained.
We all have to find what works best for us, but now I am on 3 tablets from GP and two from hospital, I am doing the same for myself! While the GP only dispenses 28 days worth, the hospital provides six months supply!!! They are always amazed when I go for 6 month checks and am asked ‘how many do you have left’ and I know exactly. Apparently, not many people are as accurate as me!
I tried tiny glass jars (little spice jars) sold in a pack of 30 at Wilko a while back but he fumbled with unscrewing the lids.
Does anyone else have similar techniques for sorting tablets?
I love the point about the cat . So true, we have accidentally trained ours to get a treat in the evening, and they are even kept on the table beside the tablet collection, so it definitely a good reminder.
We ended up buying bigger weekly dose the boxes, although they are still not big enough for his daily tablets (36 - 40 a day, depending on how many painkillers taken), but they are a pain to fill. Considering the pre-made dosette sheets from the chemist for some of them to make it easier, but haven’t looked into it yet. If anyone gets these, do you find it makes it much easier overall?
I’m afraid this post is not going to help anyone. I’m an ex-carer but I lurk. Once my brother, who I was caring for though he had carers four times a day, had to go into hospital and requested a tin of Smiths (?) fruit sweets. He was an old-age diabetic and although I let him eat cake and carbs, I said he couldn’t have sweets consisting almost 100% of sugar, but he said he didn’t mind the sugar-free ones. It was only when he was back home again that I saw he had used the tin to hide his medication in. Of course hospitals can’t be relied on to supervise administering meds. He was always more difficult than the cat. I will try to add a photo.
I have a system which works well for my regular medication. I store the pills in two plastic boxes (of the type most of us have far too many of, us included). One of these is the working box, from which I take the medication daily. The other is the reserve box, containing two months’ supply. I am thus always a month in hand.
All the working medication runs out at the same time; I have kept them in synchronization since I started on this course. If anthing goes out of synchronization, I put it back in sync by omitting a tablet for a day or taking one extra. When the working medication runs out I take from the reserve box and it is time to order more. This means that orders are issued in good time, leaving plenty of time to sort things out if there should be a delay in getting new supplies.
Chemists sell containers with compartments labelled for tablets to be taken at different times of day. I don’t need these all the time but they can be useful if I should need to take extra medication at different times of day, i.e. morning, mid-day, evening and bed-time. Set up the tablets for the whole day at the start of each day.
There are schemes whereby pharmaceutical firms and other suppliers automatically re-order your medication. I have enquired about these. Our medical practice is now discouraging these and introducing controls. Apparently there has been too much unnecessary re-ordering with the attendant wastage. My system works for me and I have full control so I stick to it.
. So true, we have accidentally trained ours to get a treat in the evening, and they are even kept on the table beside the tablet collection, so it definitely a good reminder.