Lifesaver: The Handy Dandy Pill Organizer
Posted by Immi in bipolar, meds, mental illness
If you’re taking psychiatric medications for bipolar disorder, it’s really important to keep them straight. I once took two doses of everything and boy was that the experience. My eyes rolled in my head for hours! And if I miss a dose I can be the world’s crankiest Immi. Many people have the same sorts of reactions. So we need ways to keep our bipolar meds straight, and a pill organizer is a good way to do it.
Just what sort of pill organizer you need depends on a couple of things. First, how many times a day you take your meds. Second, how many of them you take at a time. It’s no good to have a handy dandy pill organizer if you can’t fit all your meds in the boxes or there aren’t enough boxes for each day!
Personally, I use a pill box like this one here to the right. For those of us who take our manic depression meds twice a day, it works great. It has a slot for each day, and one row for the am meds and one for the pm meds. Perfect for me. But if you take meds three or four times a day, you’ll need something more along the lines of the one below.
You can get virtually every sort of pill box in the world at ForgettingThePill.com . Whatever sort you use, though, it can be a real lifesaver and help keep your eyes from rolling in your head for hours by helping you not take your meds more than you should, or by missing a dose of your bipolar meds.
~~Immi to a friend
Babbled by Immi.
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I must agree it is a very sensible thing to do…I lost mine when I moved WITH the medication in it so I had to buy a new one.
)
Another tip could be to strap your medication if you take it in the morning to your coffee or if you take it at night to something you drink or do at night eg. a book or a habit you have at night.
If your memory is like a goldfish it’s worth getting someone to remind you or if you have one of those smartphone thingys set one on that (you might have to take the manual out again! lol)
Or to take it (if your medication permits) before or after mealtimes or even a TV show you watch everyday (mine’s the Simpsons
Ack! Losting meds is the pits. So expensive and so much trouble to replace.
Yes, alarms or other sorts of reminders are great too. I couldn’t do without mine. Goldfish memory — hehe love the term!
Funny, when I saw the title of this post I immediately was reminded to go and take my morning meds! I’m HORRIBLE at remembering to take meds. I have a pill organizer and would be totally lost without it. I once doubled a bunch of my pills and was down for the count for a whole day afterwards. It was terrible. I have to get a new organizer, though, because I now take my Effexor in the morning and I only have one slot in my organizer.
Great post, Immi!
Great post. I love my pill box, because you can separate the days away from each other, say if you’re going away for 3 days, you don’t have to carry the whole darn thing (always take your bottle, just in case, in your bag, though). BTW, your link is misspelled, so it won’t connect. Thanks for a great post!
WC – Remembering meds can be a challenge for sure, and it’s awful to double up. Ick. I’m glad the post is useful!
NurseExec – I tried the separating type pill box and kept losing boxes. hehe Good thing they have all sorts of them! Thanks bunches for the tip about the link. That site is super.