Mia: Routines with multiple medicines – Disruptions to medication routines
Listen to patients and health professionals speak about their experience with taking multiple medicines.
Mia
Female
Age at interview: 30
Number of medicines: 12
Cultural background: Israeli-Australian
Mia does shift work and consequently does not have a set routine. Her symptoms trigger her to take her medicines instead.
Even the same things that you do every day, the brushing your teeth, the doing your hair, they are done in different orders at different times of the day every day for me and then I have my work on top of it which is shift work. So I’m awake at different times of the day and some days I'm working 14 hours a day and then I have five days off. So I don’t remember things at the same time every day so that's probably the major thing for remembering the medications. It's never a conscious thought of I am feeling better I don’t want to take the medication anymore, it's just forgetting, life is too busy …
The chopping and changing isn't so bad. When I first start something new it's usually because I have been sick and so it's very easy to remember to take your medication when you feel bad because you think oh I feel dreadful, I’ll take my medication. The problem is once I have been on it for a while and I feel good, and it's not the idea that I feel better now, I'm fixed, I don’t have to take it anymore.
There's just no trigger in my day that tells me, go and take your medication and I don’t have a life or a job where routine really sits very well. So there is no point of everyday where it fits in. So that's harder than the chopping and changing. The chopping and changing keeps it easier, it reminds me.
The Living with multiple medicines project was developed in collaboration with Healthtalk Australia.