The Puerto Rico pill organizer is my daily reminder. As are most of us, I am a creature of habit. After I retired, my ability to remember to take my daily medicines seemed to have gone out the window.
It’s not that there are THAT many of them. One statin pill. One aspirin, what they used to call a “baby aspirin” when I was growing up. And most notably, four calcium/vitamin D3 pills.
Apparently, because I have an autoimmune disease – the vitiligo – this has an effect on my calcium retention. It’s supposed to be at 3000. Three thousand what I have no idea. It was at 1600 three years ago, 2300 two years ago, and 2400 last year. So I was to take 2400mg of calcium daily. But I’d forget.
My family went to this flea market in the fall. At the end of the day, they had a bag sale. All you could get in a bag for five bucks. There was a seven-day poll dispenser from the Villa Cofresi Hotel, in Rincon, PR.
Essentially, bag sales allow one to buy stuff you don’t know if you need. Still, for about three seconds I resisted picking the pill dispenser. That would mean that I must be old. Then I realized, “Well, I’m unlikely to see my 132nd birthday, so I’m more than middle-aged.” AND I was neglecting taking the pills.
I’m doing MUCH better. Even when I miss a day, it’s ONLY a day, not three or four or who knows how many.
Retired
Do you know what I miss since being retired, pre-COVID? Taking a sick day. I had about a week and a half of “flu-like symptoms” in the fall. Somehow, not going to work was a measure of “geez, I must REALLY be sick.” I suppose missing two choir rehearsal and a church service was the closest approximation.
With all this purported “free time”, you might think I’ve had a couple massages. I’ve had none. This must be rectified – well, when I can again!
I had a pill box for a while – I take two morning antihistamines (hives, so they are non-negotiable) , a B complex, a probiotic, and a beta-blocker, and another of the beta-blocker at night. It’s easy enough to remember the morning pills – eat breakfast, take them (I was warned not to take the antihistamines on an empty stomach lest they cause distress). But the evening beta blocker was an issue because sometimes my dinnertimes are variable. (And in the before-times, some weeks I’d be at someone’s house for dinner). A couple times I either missed a dose, or (worse) may have taken two. (I guess a double dose isn’t enough to overdose, but I am well aware that slowing your heart too much is a bad thing)
But yeah, I resisted the pill box for the reasons you stated, and also, luckily when I traveled to my parents’ once and got stuck there by bad weather, I had taken the full pill bottles rather than the box or I would have run short.
Now what I do for the beta blocker is turn the bottle over when I take my morning dose, and turn it back up right when I take the evening dose, so I have an immediate mnemonic of whether I took that night dose. So far, it’s worked.