Glenn: Forgetting and remembering to take medicines – New medicines and established medicines

Listen to patients and health professionals speak about their experience with taking multiple medicines.

Glenn
Male
Age at interview: 50
Number of medicines: 6
Cultural background: Anglo-Australian

Glenn found it difficult to remember to take his medicines once he and his doctor had found a combination of appropriate medicines that worked.

I think how it worked for me was, the first one was the … I was already taking the Crestor and vitamin B and I think once the others started to be introduced what happened was, because it was more of a … and I know this may not be the correct word … but more of a novelty to be taking them … to be trying to find out if this is going to fix my issues … it was easy to take them. When we found the ones that worked and it just became every day this is what you take this time, this time, this time, this time, it became … no longer was it exciting, I suppose, to find out, because I knew they worked. It was just not a case of … it became difficult. 

I started to set alarms, because I was forgetting to take them. Because there were so many times … different times of the day that I had to take different tablets, it really became a chore, to the point where I would stop taking them, to my own detriment, because it became too hard to take multiple tablets all day.

 
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The Living with multiple medicines project was developed in collaboration with Healthtalk Australia.