More about meds.
Feb. 28th, 2013 10:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
randomling(As usual, no advice, please.)
So I'm starting to get a bit better at remembering to re-order meds, though my system with Remindeo needs updating somewhat. Hopefully things will continue to improve in that direction.
However, I'm having another, related problem, which is more to do with acutally taking the medication.
I have three times when I'm supposed to take meds during the day: in the morning (with breakfast is good), with dinner, and at bedtime. I even have a lovely box in which I keep all the pills, which has a plastic container for each day. Each container is divided up into four slots, of which I put pills in three.
And yet, more often than not, I still find myself taking all my pills at bedtime.
This is not great, because some of the meds are supposed to control my blood sugar, and therefore it would be great if I could take those at the appointed time.
Part of the problem here is that I'm not sure how to examine what I might be doing wrong here without devolving into beating myself up (which, appropriate or not, is kind of unhelpful in this context; the more I beat myself up, the less motivated I feel to fix it). But I'm going to see what I can do here.
Mornings
Two days a week, I have a morning therapy appointment, which means I leave the house early-for-me and almost always get out of bed so late that I don't have time for breakfast. (I find mornings extremely challenging, and dealing with mornings and bedtimes is one of the topics that I really need to address as part of my thinkings about recovery.) On these days, I usually forget/don't bother to take my pills with me, so even though I eat breakfast on the way to therapy, I don't take my pills.
Fridays, I tend to go out with my parents - we do the weekly shop and follow this up with breakfast. I have on a couple of occasions actually remembered to take my pills with me, but this is not something I do on a regular basis.
The rest of the days, I often get up extremely late, and my first meal of the day is sometimes lunch. Other times, I might have something to eat in the morning, but I almost always forget to take my pills, or don't bring them downstairs.
Where are the break points in this pattern?
One thing I can do is remember to take my pills out with me on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. How can I help myself do that? I wonder if taking the time the previous night and putting the relevant day's pill box on the shelf by the door would help. That is certainly a thing to try.
Can I also carry my pills around with me? A day's pill box fits in the pocket of my jeans, so in theory there's no reason why not. One thing I worry about is that I tend to take a nap in the middle of the day, which involves dropping my jeans on the floor. If I forget to take the pills out, that then leaves me open to stepping on the box (which might break it, which would be a pain) or losing it in the chaos that is my room. (Sorting out the chaos is another thing that really needs to be thought about as part of this "recovery" thing.)
Some part of me thinks that all I need to do is remember to take the pillbox out of my jeans when I take them off. I think the problem is that I'm also anxious that I wouldn't remember and that might lead to problems. I don't, at this stage, have a good solution except to try and get into the habit of putting pills in my pocket and taking them out again at relevant moments.
Once I have the pills with me, will it be easier to remember to take them? (I'm certainly often defeated by inertia when confronted with a process like "go upstairs, fill glass with water, take pills", so having them on me would definitely fix that potential stumbling block. But the truth is, I often eat breakfast/lunch in my room, and I still don't take pills, so I'm still not sure what's stopping me there. What's the pattern? That is the question.
(I think another part of the problem is that I get reluctant to take the meds at all, which I suppose is part of me finding it really difficult to adapt to the fact that I'm not well. I'm trying not to beat myself up for that underlying situation, but it's not very easy.)
I can, however, start to carry the pills around with me where appropriate. I might even take tomorrow's pills downstairs and see if I can't remember to take them out with me tomorrow.
Evenings
I'm rarely (currently: never) out for dinner in the evenings, so I don't usually have the problem of needing to take pills out with me at night. However, I do usually eat downstairs, and the pills usually stay upstairs, which leads to the same inertia-related stumbling block as with morning meals eaten indoors.
Carrying pills around with me is probably a good starting solution to this problem, too.
Related stuff
Just a list of things that are related to this problem:
-Bedroom chaos
-Bedtimes and waking-up times
-Memory issues(?)
-General motivated-ness
-Food!
-Exercise
These are all things I could process usefully at some point.
So I'm starting to get a bit better at remembering to re-order meds, though my system with Remindeo needs updating somewhat. Hopefully things will continue to improve in that direction.
However, I'm having another, related problem, which is more to do with acutally taking the medication.
I have three times when I'm supposed to take meds during the day: in the morning (with breakfast is good), with dinner, and at bedtime. I even have a lovely box in which I keep all the pills, which has a plastic container for each day. Each container is divided up into four slots, of which I put pills in three.
And yet, more often than not, I still find myself taking all my pills at bedtime.
This is not great, because some of the meds are supposed to control my blood sugar, and therefore it would be great if I could take those at the appointed time.
Part of the problem here is that I'm not sure how to examine what I might be doing wrong here without devolving into beating myself up (which, appropriate or not, is kind of unhelpful in this context; the more I beat myself up, the less motivated I feel to fix it). But I'm going to see what I can do here.
Mornings
Two days a week, I have a morning therapy appointment, which means I leave the house early-for-me and almost always get out of bed so late that I don't have time for breakfast. (I find mornings extremely challenging, and dealing with mornings and bedtimes is one of the topics that I really need to address as part of my thinkings about recovery.) On these days, I usually forget/don't bother to take my pills with me, so even though I eat breakfast on the way to therapy, I don't take my pills.
Fridays, I tend to go out with my parents - we do the weekly shop and follow this up with breakfast. I have on a couple of occasions actually remembered to take my pills with me, but this is not something I do on a regular basis.
The rest of the days, I often get up extremely late, and my first meal of the day is sometimes lunch. Other times, I might have something to eat in the morning, but I almost always forget to take my pills, or don't bring them downstairs.
Where are the break points in this pattern?
One thing I can do is remember to take my pills out with me on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. How can I help myself do that? I wonder if taking the time the previous night and putting the relevant day's pill box on the shelf by the door would help. That is certainly a thing to try.
Can I also carry my pills around with me? A day's pill box fits in the pocket of my jeans, so in theory there's no reason why not. One thing I worry about is that I tend to take a nap in the middle of the day, which involves dropping my jeans on the floor. If I forget to take the pills out, that then leaves me open to stepping on the box (which might break it, which would be a pain) or losing it in the chaos that is my room. (Sorting out the chaos is another thing that really needs to be thought about as part of this "recovery" thing.)
Some part of me thinks that all I need to do is remember to take the pillbox out of my jeans when I take them off. I think the problem is that I'm also anxious that I wouldn't remember and that might lead to problems. I don't, at this stage, have a good solution except to try and get into the habit of putting pills in my pocket and taking them out again at relevant moments.
Once I have the pills with me, will it be easier to remember to take them? (I'm certainly often defeated by inertia when confronted with a process like "go upstairs, fill glass with water, take pills", so having them on me would definitely fix that potential stumbling block. But the truth is, I often eat breakfast/lunch in my room, and I still don't take pills, so I'm still not sure what's stopping me there. What's the pattern? That is the question.
(I think another part of the problem is that I get reluctant to take the meds at all, which I suppose is part of me finding it really difficult to adapt to the fact that I'm not well. I'm trying not to beat myself up for that underlying situation, but it's not very easy.)
I can, however, start to carry the pills around with me where appropriate. I might even take tomorrow's pills downstairs and see if I can't remember to take them out with me tomorrow.
Evenings
I'm rarely (currently: never) out for dinner in the evenings, so I don't usually have the problem of needing to take pills out with me at night. However, I do usually eat downstairs, and the pills usually stay upstairs, which leads to the same inertia-related stumbling block as with morning meals eaten indoors.
Carrying pills around with me is probably a good starting solution to this problem, too.
Related stuff
Just a list of things that are related to this problem:
-Bedroom chaos
-Bedtimes and waking-up times
-Memory issues(?)
-General motivated-ness
-Food!
-Exercise
These are all things I could process usefully at some point.
