Ooooops! Filled boxes wrong...

[vdub]

I knew this would happen some day. I have a 7 compartment container for pills, both AM and PM. I know what goes where, but for some reason when I filled the container last week (on MTX day), I forgot to put in my Tramadol, which is a mixture of Codeine and Tylenol. SOOOOOO, for the past couple days I have been feeling more crappy than normal (codeine withdrawl for this old junkie crack head I guess). Now that I have properly loaded things, I'm hoping tomorrow will be a banner day..... We'll see....

[Psyborg]

At the clinic I saw they had advertisements for a pill dispenser system that does some of the sorting for you. It also reminds you which pills to take, and if you missed a dose. Now 1.5 years ago I'd have thought that was nuts, now with the pills I'm taking I can totally see how people forget stuff. Hope you feel better today

[gurinbasra]

Oh boy, I've done this on numerous occasions, the worst was when I took the Pred accidentally in the evening! My face became red, I didn't sleep all night then I did take it again in the morning, and after a few days I was fine and back to normal. Maybe have someone at home look things over as I know it was the Pred that made me "crazy" in the first place.

[vdub]

Now that I have the right stuff, I'm feeling pretty good today. I need to get a better system or a bigger tackle box. I use a tackle box for my drugs. It has 16 adjustable cubby holes for drugs. I am one hole short. Since I'm feeling good today, maybe I'll make that a mission, but I have to get a round of blood tests first; the 3-month endo tests and then the 2-week rheumy tests. I also have to pickup my mri and ct scan. Fun day at the hospital!

[Sangye]

When I first got out of the hospital I was incredibly weak and totally messed up being on high-dose pred. I couldn't think straight at all. My first morning home, I ate breakfast and then took my pills. I hadn't put them in pill boxes, just took them right out of the bottles. My short-term memory was so bad that I immediately couldn't remember if I'd taken my pred. The person helping me couldn't remember either since she wasn't a morning person and was barely functioning. We had to empty the bottle of pred and count up the pills. We got about half-way through and lost count. Twice. We finally had to put them in piles of 10 all over the table. It was hilarious and terrifying all at the same time.

[vdub]

My short-term memory was so bad

I have my watch set to vibrate for my afternoon cortef. The wife used to have hers set for one hour after mine, so that she could ask me and make sure I had taken it. Didn't work out to well, tho, until I told her to set her watch for 5 minutes after I was supposed to take it. There's no way I'd remember something that I was supposed to do an hour earlier. Even 5 minutes is pushing it. Too bad.... I used to be pretty smart.... I'm dumber than a brick now....

[NicShaf]

I've done that! With everything we're all on, its a wonder that we all don't do it more often. I had some Ibuprofen in my cupboard that is in the same size bottle as my Bactrim, and the pills are both white and about the same size. I filled my weekly pill box with Ibuprofin every other day instead of Bactrim, and I didn't notice until the end of the week...scary! Now I check and double check every single week when I fill my pill box. Yikes.

Glad to hear you're feeling better vdub

[drz]

Last year when I was leaving the nursing home learning to manage my own meds was one of the tougher things. They gave me a large weekly holder which had a daily box for each day of the week with four compartments for different times of the the day. Then they taught me how to fill each compartment correctly in a way that i could keep track of it by filling each correct compartment with one type of pill at a time. I would set them up all in front of me and move them from side to side as I filled each one. When you are taking a couple dozen pills a day it is not easy to remember them all and i couldn't do it without this system. Still it is not fool proof. One time I forgot to check my list and was missing one that I had forgot to pick up the refill. My pharmacy generally has them all on auto refill and and remind me by email and phone calls but you know how that goes. Last week I screwed up and took the morning meds in the evening by mistake which gave me a double dose of some and lack of others that night but it got caught up and corrected the next day when I realized what I had done. As long as I can remember the day of the week and time of day it works great. If I can't set them up correctly anymore I can have a nurse do that for me at home. When I can't remember to take them at home on time anymore, then it is back to nursing home or assisted living place i guess. I think it is amazing with all the meds we are on that we don't have more med errors than we do.