A peek inside my pill box.

     I am writing this blog against my wife's advice.  I think she feels that discussing my myriad of medications will lose the younger portion of my audience, but relate-able or not, I'll take the risk.  Like all of my blogs, feel free to skip this one, if you don't feel you can relate, but you never know, it might be entertaining.....

My pill box

     I could write an entire blog about how I am slowly turning into my Mother, struggling to remember people's names, repeating my stories (not on the blog yet, but wait for it), becoming less judgmental of people's choices and habits, but this morning, it's all about the pills.  Recently my pill box became as full as my Mother's, which one would expect, except I'm comparing hers at 83 and mine at 47.  A few years ago, when I started to assist my sister Teary occasionally with my Mom's care, I first noticed her pill box.  Mom's was broken down into each day and then into the 3 parts of the day.  They weren't sealed compartments so as many times as I went to open hers, I'd do it upside down and her pills spilled together on the table and I had to take a best guess at how they went back in.  Playing pill lottery became my second favorite game over there right behind comparing sugar levels with Mom and wasting her test strips.  My pill box has sealed compartments and I only have to take pills twice a day, so it works pretty well.  Another difference is that Mom hated to take her pills and would stall forever before she swallowed them.  She liked to take a drink first and then take them one at a time.  With no exaggeration, I sat with her for a 1/2 an hour with 3 pills in front of her, going nowhere.  I, on the other hand, take all my pills and then swallow them down with a little water. In a pinch I can forgo the water even. 

     So what pills do I take?  They really are mostly vitamins.  I take a C, a D, a Fish oil, and a multivitamin with iron.  I manage my chronic arthritis with Glucosamine-Chondroitin, an anti-malarial (they found that it improves flexibility), and a light dose of an anti-inflammatory.  The last pill I take is a Statin for my

cholesterol, but I'm down to twice a week on that one and could eliminate it altogether if I wanted to.  Other than Ibuprofen for swelling and pain, that's the gamut of my pill box.  Pretty impressive isn't it?   Yes, I've ready the studies that say all I'm doing with the vitamins and supplements is making my pee more expensive, but who really wants cheap pee?  Not me.  It's kind of a status symbol. I'm sure other guys notice it while standing next to me at a urinal.   While I've always considered myself a medical minimalist, my pill box seems to defy that and has gradually swelled to near full.  I've questioned the need for each one, but at the end of the day, I don't pretend I know more than my doctors, well not often anyway.  My latest checkup and my physical condition seem to support the necessity of the pills or at least their effectiveness, but I still want to take fewer than I take right now.  I want to simplify a lot of things in my life eventually (think Thoreau in the woods, and stop laughing, I really mean it) but the pressure to perform in everyday life keeps me seeking the optimum balance of pharmaceutical assistance.  I'm thankful that I've been able to avoid the steroids and some of the arthritis medicines with the bad side effects (my wife is glad I avoided the Viagra). 

All things considered, I guess I can't really complain about the pills that I pop, and there are days that my quality of life would be diminished without them.  Speaking of complaining though, I'm old enough now to rant a little about the things I would change if I could.  I'll start with child proof caps. I'd like to play the odds on this one, if the odds of a toddler wandering into the top of my medicine cabinet is greater than my need to get my pill bottles open each day is greater, fine, give me the cap that you have to push down and twist hard just to reach it's contents. If it's the other way around, how about giving the my swollen arthritic hands a break once in a while and let me at my pills. If it's not asking too much, can I get the big labels on each bottle to actually have big writing on them too? Sometimes, even with my glasses on, I struggle with what I am actually taking. 

     I'm probably pontificated enough on the topic of pills, so I'll finish this up now.  It's getting late so I've got to start my morning routine, and on Tuesday's that includes thinking of next week's blog topic.  I've got a good one picked, that I think you will like, not to tease it too much but I'm thinking of blogging about my pill box.