Did You Take Your Meds Today?

Tricks to keep track of meds:

Many of us have meds for morning, for evening/night, for when needed, in addition to meds for other conditions.  Did you take your meds today?  As we age, it becomes easier to be forgetful, so this is a valid question.  There are lots of tricks to keep track of meds.

Standard pill boxes.

You can load the compartments for several days, a week.  There are containers that have AM-Midday-PM compartments.  You fill them in advance, and take them when scheduled.  Do not close the lid after taking the meds, and you can easily see if you have taken them.

                         

An alternative to those boxes - A use for old pill bottles: on Sunday, I set up my pills for the week, with seven pills for each bottle, using an old bottle for each type.

Self contained inhalers for once or twice daily use.  

When I open the package, I use a permanent marker to put the date opened and EE (if the count is Even in the Evening) or EM (If the counter should be Even in the Morning).

Inhaled capsules.

If the capsules are in a foil packet, when you get out the packet, use a permanent marker to put the day of the week it should be taken.

If the capsules are loose, they can go in the standard pill box or in a weekly pill bottle.

Inhalers, like Pro-Air or Albuterol.

Some of the newer, more expensive ones have a counter.  Mine don’t.  You never want to discover your inhaler is empty.  Also, I have been told that toward the end, if you haven’t been keeping track, the medication can be exhausted and all that is coming out is propellant.  One suggestion is to use a rubber band to hold a paper and a golf pencil on the inhaler and put a mark each time it is used.  Myself, I can’t be bothered.  I get my meds overseas, and the inhalers are less than $5 each.  I just weigh them with my kitchen scale.  I exhausted one inhaler, and it weighed 22 grams, so when an inhaler gets to 24 grams, there may be plenty left, but I just get a new one.