An issue of low income eating the clock, here, is the inordinate time it takes to set up the monthly pill sorter of meds I take, with sometimes dangerous results. Now, I have to go to a weekly sorter due to meds changes the doc wants me to "try." And he's a great doc, making small incremental changes thoughtfully-- I'm so lucky to at least have HIM.

The sorters are fiulled from:

<> An XL ziploc (small spacebag) containing the current 90-day-by-mail scrip-meds we cannot afford (after the benefits pay a fraction of their cost)-- of course generics for the most part;

<> A gallon Ziploc of scrip-meds we take SOMEtimes, including unexpired antibiotics on hand in case a weekend infection springs up and the doc who returns our phone call names one we could take until the "local" (LOL) $5 pharmacy opens;

<> Another gallon Ziploc of over-the-counter stuff we must have when we travel, sometimes for 3-4 weeks at a time; of course these are all bought-only-on-sale, industrial size containers.


From these I serve as my own dispensing lay-pharmacist. In a good week I find time to set it up before it's time to go to bed-- and take the night's dose.

OTOH it's late at night I am most alert for the job.... some of the meds affect my ability to think clearly, especially the last med added for twice-daily use that the doc has not doubled the strength for.

The pill sorters have been full of errors for weeks since I started that newest one, and now I am supposed to re-sort it all into a new timing pattern.


Because we get our scrips by mail, I doubt the very nice pharmacist at the local $5 shop would like to do my pill sorters FOR me-- they can if they are the supplier, I guess. The pricing is a crapshoot between "local" and mail-order; my schedule does not always allow me to get "local" refills when needed, while the mail-order can be done online.



I'm taking all these bags out of the fridge and to my next appt so the doc's staff can set them up for me or at least "proofread" the ones I'll set up there!

And this is not an over-prescribing doc-- but between scrip meds and OTC/supplements, it's 11-14 pills a night plus another 4 or 5 each AM-- I forget now, since it's all changing.


???

But no matter how elegantly I sort out the confusion, it will eat the clock weekly to deal with it, and I am certainly not trained to do it or sharp enough that I SHOULD be. The more complicated it gets, the more make-dumb stuff I have to take. And the less ability I have to deal with it-- something's not right THERE.

!!!

~Susan