Medication regimes - Designed for people without brain fog
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) scatters my thoughts. I operate in a hyper-alert, tunnel vision fog. Always scanning for danger, my brain often screens ‘normal’ out - daily activities performed on autopilot, and then forgotten. Easily overwhelmed, my executive function just does not reliably function like another user of medications might.
Making me an unreliable drug taker.
Elusive names
“What medications are you on?” Always complicated, often long (and full of ‘X’s, ‘V’s or ‘Z’s), the names of my medication(s) reliably elude me, sending me off on a game of “guess the drug” (often with A & E staff).
Elusive names
Clue 1: “It’s one of those anti-acid things. Can’t remember what it’s called. Starts with the letter N”. Followed by a vague description (size, colour, form).
Compounding the naming problem is that most drugs have a second name (the scientific one) printed on the box. One short snappy name is all these boxes require. Especially when some doctors refer to them only by their scientific name.
My memory for dosages? “I take one tablet of P, two tablets of Z”, I will say, clueless to the grams or milligrams in each tablet. Different shaped tablets for different doses might jog my battered brain.
In a hospital, caught in a terrified flashback ridden state, the possibility of remembering a list of complex names and their dosages is just not going to happen.
Medication regimes INCREASE anxiety
Did I remember to take my medication?
I might put two tablets into my mouth rather than one, neglect to take them at all, take one medication but not the other two, or even with a tablet dispenser confuse one medication with another. Accidently overdosed? Many times. So, I have developed an anxiety fuelled obsession with taking pills, checking multiple times each day how many tablets are still in their foil sheet, or leaving the lid up on the tablet dispenser between doses – persistent and insidious little rituals to counteract my skyrocketing “have-I-taken-my-medication”? panic. The panic which amplifies the pre-existing PTSD anxiety.
I am grateful for tablets which never arrive in a bottle. Or in liquid form.
Surely the drug companies can see my difficulties, I have illogically thought. Printed days of the week AND suns/moons or day/noon/night on the foil packets would do it. Maybe even Week 1, 2, … stamped into each foil sheet. For those times I forget to transfer pills from the box to the tablet dispenser.
Medication regimes INCREASE anxiety
“Put a reminder in your phone”, mentally well friends have said. Not recognizing my strategy to avoid the unpleasant jump-out-of-my-skin reaction to surprise rings, pings and other random noises - which is to put my phone on silent (and then forget to check it).
Unobtrusive tablet dispensers
When I can find it, the dispenser helps to separate medications. But, often white or pastel coloured, it regularly blends into my chaos.
Unobtrusive tablet dispensers
Dispensers in insanely bright colours. Or an electronic one – which pings if I phone it … to help me find it. Or magnetized – for the fridge door. I need these things.
Too many doses
One tablet per medication per day I can generally manage. One tablet two times a day I often do not, my brain mixing morning and night, erroneously reassuring itself that I have taken it.
Too many doses
One slow release tablet per drug per day, designed to be taken at mealtime =
my drug taking life simplified – especially when the pills look much the same.
Tablets and capsules which cannot be cut
Even when tweaked by the tiniest possible amount, dosage changes (particularly of psychiatric drugs), have resulted in uncontrollable crying, depression, agitation and suicidal thoughts.
Needing smaller amounts than can be purchased, I have discovered that some tablets cannot be cut with a tablet cutter/kitchen knife. My ‘dose’ often tiny bitter tasting crumbs picked up with the tip of my finger. I take a guesstimate of the correct number of crumbs and hope for the best. Capsules are worse - defying my attempts to part the two halves and dump out the powder. And, of course, there are also those tablets which one is told NOT to cut.
Tablets and capsules which cannot be cut
Please – tablets with a compulsory X-shaped groove across their middle, or more graded doses. Or even little graded sachets full of powdered drug. And none of those easy-to-swallow-impossible-to-cut capsules.
Drugs which arrive accompanied
Some drugs arrive with side effects (e.g., sedation or insomnia) which further addle my mind, my life a slow shuffle through smog. Or, increase agitation. Nausea, dizziness, headaches, etc. Some of these may be no bother to others, but turn my PTSD into PTSD + Extra Stress. Stimulating that sudden “will not comply with treatment” slide.
Drugs which arrive accompanied
Medications can be life improvers and saviours. And have improved my health in various ways over the years. But. My focus is on survival – not on navigating a medication regime. Taking tablets does my head in.
Medical world:
Trauma and mental illness impact everything.
I have PTSD and I have trouble taking your drugs - you need to remember that my brain does not work like your own does.
NOTE: Since writing this I have been introduced to Webster-paks. (So far) foolproof medication management. Managed by the chemist (a brain less muddled than mine), not I. Each little plastic bubble full of the correct tablet, in the correct dosage, and the correct time slot. There are a couple of things though…Mr/Mrs Webster, there needs to be a few extra tablet bubbles - pre breakfast, pre lunch, pre dinner. And perhaps something a little less childproof - something that does not require an accurately pointed mental blade to open…
Originally written Oct, 2019; updated March, 2020