My medicines and I have not always gotten along. The current daily allotment has been five for a while, mostly tolerated though one needs a suspension periodically and another needs an addition periodically. One disappeared due to orthostasis, and even now with very good BP control I will still get momentarily symptomatic on occasion when I arise quickly. Compliance has been no better than my patients' until about a year ago when a therapeutic trial with lab work convinced me that these tablets are all doing what is intended.
It helped to create a ritual. Just as I start every Sunday morning outlining what I want to do during the week, as a week's perspective tends to be more purposeful than a daily task list, every Sunday I place all the pills in the their plastic pill case, noting which days I goofed which have recently been negligible, and what I need to renew at the pharmacy. It has worked out well.
I don't know how long I've had the white pill case, a linear seven compartment plastic model readily available from the Dollar Store, though usually given to me by a drug rep, pharmacy, or insurer that has an interest in taking the medicine regularly. The logo of the donor has long since worn off. What also wore off this week were two of the seven plastic hinges that allow me to open and close each day's compartment. I had a few others around, a yellow one in a less convenient oval that I use for travel and another similar to the one that broke, this one from CVS Caremark with the cherry red print visible from the front. Gleaming white, unlike the broken one that had acquired some gray grunge near the recesses of the embossed day letters. I transferred the remaining week's pills from old to new, put the broken one in the trash, and swallowed by first day's quota.
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