From a morning shower to an evening walk, we all have routines to help us stay healthy. If you’re like many, one routine may be taking medicines to help keep more serious health conditions at bay.
Maintenance medicines do their best work when taken on a regular adherence schedule. But busy lives can make it easy to forget to take the prescriptions, over-the-counter (OTC) medicines and supplements your doctor recommends. With a few tips and advice, though, you can create a simple routine that’s easy to follow while helping you get the most from the medicines you take.
To build healthy habits that last, it helps to begin with a solid foundation. By taking time to think about what your medicine routine might look like, what methods help you stay organized and which reminders work best, you can create a pattern that’ll be easier to stick to.
Make a list of your medications you can keep handy
Write a list of the medicines you take, including prescription medicines, OTC medicines, vitamins and supplements. Using our personal medication list template (PDF) is a great way to get started.
In addition to the name of each medicine, include the following in your list:
- How often you need to take each medicine (weekly, once daily, twice daily, etc.)
- What your dosage is each time you take it (one 2mg pill, three 25mg capsules, etc.)
- What time of day you need to take each dose (morning, afternoon, before bed, etc.)
- How you need to take your medicine (with food, on an empty stomach, with water, etc.)
- Why you need to take your medicine (to help manage cholesterol, lower blood pressure, etc.)
It can also help to include who prescribed your medicines and which pharmacy you fill them at.
Create your regular medication schedule
Use your list of medicines to build a day-by-day schedule. You can do this by organizing your list by the times of day you need to take your medicines. For example:
- Before breakfast
- With lunch
- With dinner
- At bedtime
- Overnight
For each time period and day of the week, write down the medicine you need to take, the size of the dose, and whether you need to take it with food or water.
Once you’ve created your schedule, make several copies and put one in your bathroom, at your nightstand or wherever you take your medicine. You could also make new copies of your schedule each week and check off your medicines as you go.
If you need to take multiple medicines or supplements each day, taking single doses from individual pill bottles can eat up a lot of time. Plus, it can increase the chances of forgetting a dose or accidentally doubling up if you don’t remember taking one. That’s why many people who have a regular medicine routine use a pill organizer.
A pill organizer makes it easy and convenient to keep track of multiple medicines by giving you one or several compartments for each day. Once a week, just fill the compartments with the medicines you need for each of the next seven days. When it’s time to take your medicines, open the compartment for your dose and go. Plus, a pill organizer shows you immediately whether you took your pills for the day or not.
There are many pill organizers available in different sizes, and even ones that snap out so you can bring your medicines with you wherever you go. You can find a good selection at your local drug store, grocery store or online.
Pair your medication routine with an easy-to-remember habit
On their own, new routines can be easy to forget. But when you connect them with a habit that’s already a solid part of your day, it can take the effort out of remembering.
For example, meals are a perfect time to associate with your medicine schedule. Not only do they help ensure you take your medicines with food or liquid if necessary, they also provide a consistent time of day that makes taking your medicines easier to remember.
But if meals don’t work for you, you can choose another everyday habit to do along with taking your medicines. Brushing your teeth, brewing your first cup of coffee in the morning, watching the first commercial break of your favorite show – all of these and more are excellent events to match up with taking your regular medicines.
Use reminders – on notes, on your phone and with your friends
For some, posting notes near clocks, in the bathroom and in other noticeable areas around the house really helps medicine routines stick. For others, setting regular alarms on clocks, smartphones and other devices also helps. If you have a friend who also takes medicines regularly, you can remind each other with daily call-ins.
The key is to keep your reminders fresh. For example, notes left in the same place can be easily ignored over time. Every few weeks or so, switch up your notes and notifications so you don’t fall into a pattern that helps you forget more than it helps you remember.
Another key to a successful medicine routine is making sure there’s medicine to take. Keeping up with your prescription refills and your supplies of OTC medicines and supplements is essential to making everything work.
For example, as you fill your pill organizer each week, keep track of how much medicine you have left. When it looks like you only have two or three weeks’ worth remaining, it’s a good time to get a refill or stock up at the store.
If you use a calendar or weekly planner, another good way to remember is to set a reminder right after you fill your prescription for 30 or 90 days in the future (depending on your medicine supply). You can also see if your drug store can send you email or text reminders when it’s time to refill your prescription. Some pharmacies, including our mail order pharmacy, will even offer automatic refills – when you start running low on your medicine, all you need to do is pick it up from the store or watch for it to be delivered.
Keeping you and your medications safe
As you keep your schedule, it’s important to safely store everything you need to keep you healthy and your medicine effective.
Keep your original prescription bottles
As you fill your pill organizer, keep the medicines and supplements you’re not using for the week in their original bottles. These contain vital information that can help answer questions and keep everything in place.
Don’t combine medicines
Other than your pill organizer, don’t mix different medicines together into unlabeled bottles or ones with different labels than what’s inside.
Keep your medicine cool and dry
Heat, light, humidity, moisture, air – the world outside a pill bottle or mail-order package might not be kind to your medicine. To keep it fresh and fully effective, store your medicine in a place that’s cool and dry as soon as you receive it. Try to keep your medicine in your kitchen or bedroom and away from the warm, moist environment of your bathroom.
Secure your medicine
If you have children or pets in your house, it’s best to keep your medicine in a place that’s out of reach and out of sight. Even better, keep it in a cabinet with a child latch or lock. If you take controlled substances that could be misused if stolen, it’s also a good idea to secure your medicines in a locked cabinet.
Know what to do if you miss a dose or can’t remember if you took your medicine
From time to time, almost everyone forgets to take their medicine or can’t remember if they did. It might be tempting to double your doses the next time you take your medicine, but doing so can be dangerous and isn’t usually recommended.
When you fill your prescriptions, your pharmacy usually includes information on what to do if you miss a dose, along with other details about your medicine. OTC medicines and supplements should also include this information on their packaging. Refer to those instructions for help, or you can always call your pharmacy or doctor with questions.
Have a plan if you accidentally take your medicine twice
The seriousness of taking a double dose varies by medicine. When you fill your prescriptions or buy OTC medicines or supplements at your local pharmacy, ask your pharmacist what you should do if you accidentally take twice the dose at once. If you don’t know for sure and it happens to you, call your doctor or pharmacist right away. If you can’t reach them, America’s Poison Centers are available 24/7/365 at 800-222-1222.
Special considerations for older adults and those with dementia
Many medicines can be hazardous if taken incorrectly, off-schedule or by accident. That’s why it’s important to give additional attention to the medicine routines of older adults and people with dementia.
Start by talking with their doctors and care teams to get recommendations on how to encourage your loved ones to take their medicines regularly while also keeping their medicines safe. With personal advice, you can take the right steps to help the people you care about naturally follow their doctors’ recommendations.
If you have any questions about the medicines you take, your doctor and pharmacist are both ready to help. From advice about prescriptions and how they interact to information about how medicines work, your doctor and pharmacist have the knowledge and resources to get you the answers you need. Medication therapy management (MTM) pharmacists are also available to help you navigate multiple medicines, answer your questions and provide advice.
You can also browse our health information library and get answers for a wide variety of prescription and OTC medicine questions. But for information that’s tailored for you and your health, it’s always best to talk with your care team, including your doctor and pharmacist.
