Do you ever wonder...

...how we keep track of all our meds? I'm trying to explain to my friend Jess how I take my stomach meds and her only response was "Jeeze". It seems like a lot, and I remember when I started my meds immediately after transplant, my fear was that I would never get it right.

So lets take a look:

I take 12 pills for my stomach a day.
2 colace twice a day
2 domperidone four times a day, half an hour before I eat

I take 175mg of Cyclosporin in the AM
and 150mg of Cyclosporin in the PM

I take 75mg of Imurran once a day. That means I take one pill (looks like an 8) and cut the other pill in half.

I take 7 mg of prednisone every other day. On the days in between I take 5. On the days I take 7, I have to cut one of the 5mg pills in half. It's recommended to take pred with milk. But i take everything with tea.

I take 2 magnesium pills twice a day - they should technically be taken in the middle of the day, but i just take them morning and night. They can't be mixed with a lot of stuff.

Calcium. I take 1 calcium pill twice a day, and if you mix it with your iron pills neither one will work. Iron must be taken separate.

Iron. I can only take it every few days because it constipates me badly. Iron can't be taken with anything acidic, and you can't take it if you're on anything for hearburn. It can't be taken with milk or calcium or food because it will lessen the effects of it. However, if you take it on an empty stomach, it constipates you. So either way, it's lose all around.

Then there's my injections. I need at least 5 a week. I can do them whenever I want, wherever I want, however I want. There aren't a lot of rules for it, thankfully.

Then there's the heartburn pill, that i take for the heartburn I don't have. It's to prevent 'silent' heartburn, which can be caused due to my transplant when my stomach got so carelessly knocked around for 'being in the way'.

I take Septra Mon, Weds, Friday at night. There's nothing fancy about it, but if memory serves me, it's supposed to be taken with a 'full glass of water' and not with milk.

Another nightly med is vitamin D. Nothing fancy about it either.

Then there are the monthly bloods that need to be done now, which I do on the same day as my monthly PFTs and port flush. I am trying to also figure out ordering my Vivaglobin to be picked up on the same day so that I don't need to take an extra trip over to Kitchener, but that bright idea failed me because I'm going tomorrow and won't run out of stuff till next week. Oh well.

Then there's the fun aspect of re-ordering prescriptions and med products, which I won't get into because it's frustrating and upsetting and makes me want to jump through the wall. I will have the pleasure of ordering meds, vivaglobin, and needles, syringes, gauze, alcohol swabs and all that fun stuff later on today or tomorrow. We'll see how scary it ends up being. thanks to my discovery of a hidden stash in my closet, i won't need as many. Hurray!

So, have I confused you yet?!