Helen: Routines with multiple medicines – Complex medication regimens
Listen to patients and health professionals speak about their experience with taking multiple medicines.
Helen
Female
Age at interview: 58
Number of medicines: 10
Cultural background: Anglo-Australian
Helen found it easy to manage her medicines in the beginning when they were new. She has become a little complacent over time.
I think that's when I tried to develop a bit of a routine for myself, which then over time kind of fell down. It's a bit like trying a new diet. You're very aware of it at the beginning, and you have all these rules for yourself. Then after a while you sort of think oh, just think I could let that go a little bit. I think it's the same with medication routines. In the beginning, it's all new. You think oh, I must be really careful and I must do this the way that they say. Then after a while it's like oh, maybe I don't need as much. Particularly pain relief, I thought maybe the pain isn't as bad as I'm thinking it is. If I don't take the medication, it might be quite all right. Then I would end up suffering. But by that stage, it was too late, because I needed to take the medication at least two hours beforehand. Even if I take it right now it's still not going to be effective for a while. That sort of thing reminds me I'm not quite managing it properly …
Well, I've discovered that pain relief, like Panadol Osteo, doesn't work for me until at least one hour 50 minutes to two hours after I've taken the tablets. So if I'm going to be able to go to work on public transport without pain, I have to take those medications at least two hours before I leave for work. So that means as soon as I wake up, I have to take that medication, even if I'm not getting up out of bed for a while. Then I have to take my antihypertensives, my asthmatic medication. I take my krill oil. But then, I need to eat something before I take my glucosamine and chondroitin. So that means I have to work out what am I going to eat really quickly, because I actually want to get the medications out of the way and be done with it, before I have a shower or whatever. So I found that I'm now eating extra, because I'll have some sort of … just rice crackers or something like that to start off with, and then eat breakfast later on. So that's not going to be doing my arthritis very much good.
So I'm still struggling with working out a routine that will suit me well. Then I get to work, and I get so engrossed with work, I forget to take the Panadol Osteo for the next lot. So that will not dawn on me until I get some pain and I think oops, you forgot to take your Panadol Osteo. You're going to be going home from work, and that's less than two hours' time. You've missed the boat. I'm still … yeah, I'm not dealing too well with timing. So what I've done now is bought a walking stick that's a fold up walking stick, which I just take out when I'm going home, so that I get a seat on the train. Because I was finding because I wasn't really controlling my medication properly, I'd be in quite a lot of pain by the time I got home, because I was standing up on the train every day.
So that's … I think I'm still working out how to manage all of this well at the moment.
The Living with multiple medicines project was developed in collaboration with Healthtalk Australia.