Remembering tablets

I like this thread. It keeps reminding me to take my tablets.

When the current recycling system came into force in Cheshire, the council held a roadshow here and I asked about recycling blister packs and was told that the waste separation plant could recycle both the plastic and foil. So, at least although they cannot be reused at present, they can be recycled. My statins are in packs marked with the day, so should be easy to remember.

DH and I both take our tablets in bed with a cup of tea (luckily we don't take many!) but DH now has to take one after breakfast which is causing huge confusion!

I can appreciate that rationale for open bottles of pills/liquids but surely blister packs could be reused? Posed the question of ensuring non contamination of blister packs to engineer DH who said it would be relatively simple to design packaging which would indicate if it had been tampered with. Coating packs in colour changing film which activates when blister is popped or pierced was one of his suggestions.

Not at all Katek - I do not get easily offended - I was just explaining the bucketloads of tablets! The regime is very complicated and does my head in - as they say. The watch is a help though and we would not be without it.

The reason returned meds are destroyed is because there is no way of checking whether they have been tampered with, poisoned for instance. Apparently. When chucking them out costs too much, some brilliant bod will invent a way of checking but right now it's cheaper to chuck. Think banknotes.

It would probably cost the NHS more to have to fight litigations when they were accused of being careless in giving people returned, and possibly tamoered with, meds.

I'm sorry if you felt I was being critical Mishap....I only meant that it was a frightening situation dealing with that volume of medication. Apologies if it came across the wrong way

My OH is on dozens of drugs - but he has PD and a heart problem. They are frequently reviewed and are the making of him - he would be a shaking immobile wreck without them and we thank heaven for them.

The watch I linked to above does go on beeping intermittently until you press a button to say you have taken the tablet/patch.

When District Nursing I remember regularly emptying patients' kitchen cupboards of unused and out of date medicines especially when they'd been mis-taking drugs or when they'd had a medication review.
A commonly used analgesic (Distalgesic) was £80 a box and one woman had 120 boxes 'because they're free on my repeat prescription and one day I might need them'! That's £9600 I chucked out and took to the hospital for disposal.

There are a number of specialist drugs that run into £000's of pounds per treatment.

If there wasn't this waste perhaps the so-called postcode lottery wouldn't exist? Sobering thought along with the fact that not finishing courses of antibiotics is driving the spread of drug resistant infections and diseases like TB - it won't be long before multidrug resistant TB is here, it's rife in Africa and former Soviet block countries.

You would be amazed at the amount of medicine brought back to surgeries for disposal; some of them items that cost £100 a box. With chemists delivering so much these days as well, there isn't the personal approach to it and repeat prescriptions are just automatically repeated .

Oh heck, usually take mine when the bongs go on Radio 4 at 6pm, just realised that I missed them! Will go down and take them now.

I'm still picking my jaw up from the floor. That is absolutely horrendous!

A report by the Department of Health estimates that unused medicines cost the NHS around £300 million every year, with an estimated £110 million worth of medicine returned to pharmacies, £90 million worth of unused prescriptions being stored in homes and £50 million worth of medicines disposed of by Care Homes.

waste.com/campaign

Even 15 years ago a DGH near here was disposing of a skipful of medication every day, horrendous waste.

I hope somebody from that elderly chap's practice saw the programme Teetime and that something has been done to help him. I'm currently on 7 meds but two are inhalers and two have only been prescribed very recently for my prolonged cough. I'm not meant to be on these for ever. I think I'm very lucky when I see/hear how many pills others take. 'Dozens' a day does sound quite alarming-DH is on 6 and that's after two heart attacks.

What I don't understand is why returned medication cannot be re-prescribed. I've often had antibiotics changed and been left with two or three blister packs untouched. These are just disposed of by the pharmacy. It must cost NHS a fortune.

I use my mobile phone set on vibrate to remind me and keep it in my pocket on the odd occasion when I have to take tablets other than my daily one.

I agree, Teetime. I'm astounded at the number of pills some GNetters seem to be taking daily! I appreciate that they are for various health problems, but Mishap's DH taking 'dozens' a day is frightening!

My late MIL was very ill one Christmas and became so weak and delirious her GP was called, but as he was on holiday the locum checked her over and said she was on far too much medication. He reduced it drastically and she recovered very quickly. Goodness knows what her regular GP was thinking...

Hmmmm, nobody seems to have invented an alarm which goes off at 7am and 7pm and, crucially, GOES ON BEEPING UNTIL IT'S TURNED OFF. That's what I need. My alarm turns itself off after half a minute so there's nothing to remind me that I've missed a dose.

A few years ago something called the National Service Framework for older people was operating in the NHS. It was a set of best practice objectives which were measured and monitored. Among other things it stated that people should not be on more than 6 different meds at any one time and if and when this point was reached a medication review should commence. Time and time again we would have patients admitted to hospital whose meds were in a terrible state of chaos and under medical supervision everything except heart meds and diabetes ones were stopped and the effect monitored. Patients would leave hospital on this reduced amount and in a few short weeks would be back up to where they were before as the GP had added something else in at the next visit often because the patient had insisted. Of course self medication can also play a part. Polypharmacy is a huge problem in that not only can medication cause side effects but also other medical problems. There is a massive amount of waste as many prescription dispensed are never taken. The national prescribing bill is astronomical. I don't know the answer - wish I did - not that anyone would listen!

It's an issue which needs to be addressed in the more joined up way you describe Teetime. I was watching the programme last week regarding the demands that elderly patients can put on the emergency service and one poor chap had called them 20 times in 5 days. He just could not manage his medication and didn't know where else to turn. There were around 30 different bottles and packs of medication spread out on the floor-no wonder he couldn't cope. MIL ended up with Nomad packs because she was on so many drugs. Perhaps not enough people know that this service is available although it is extra work for pharmacists.

I always recommended to my patients that you make a routine of taking meds that way your brain prompts you. However not everyone is comfortable with routines. As a prescribing nurse what I looked at in conjunction with the GP and pharmacist was initially whether we could get the meds to as few times per day as possible. Now that a number of meds are available in long acting form (some in patches) this is sometimes possible. secondly regular medication reviews ensures that some meds which are not longer of use or required can be deleted. as others have said there are now a number of devices to remind/prompt.

As a patient myself I have done all the above and although I have a lot of meds they are sorted into 9 when I get up before leaving the bedroom and three at night on retiring. if I need extra pain control during the day I just take them as needed.

I do not have a problem- I have been taking drugs since my teens so it is a way of life.

I'm fine with the morning/evening ones as that's been my pattern for years. I've just had new med added to the list which is meant to be taken 4 times per day. It's guaranteed I will forget one or other of the lunch/tea time doses even if I'm at home. I need to retrain myself!

I set my phone alarm for...9am, 1pm, 5pm, 9pm and then take meds around 3am, or whatever time I'm awake during the night which is frequent and regular.

My late MiL had numerous pills to take at different times of the day but she got very confused by it all. So the chemist made her up blister packs which had all the pills she had to take at any time of the day, all together in little groups. This worked really well.

The only oill not included was warfarin as she had to take different doses in different days.

I have containers marked with the day and am and pm compartments. The sit in a neat tray on my bathroom shelf. I have to take the am ones an hour before breakfast and the pm ones at bedtime. At breakfast I have a separate container for steroids. These all have to be taken on holiday and I always take a copy of my prescription with me in case I lose anything vital. On one occasion I forgot to take the steroid container and had to find an out of hours doctor to prescribe the needful.