What if you don’t remember taking your evening Eliquis dose?

I was distracted. My heart went into a 10 second tachy while I was walking over to take my Crestor and I either swallowed an Eliquis or a Crestor. What do you do if you don’t remember? I knew I was due for the Crestor but after I walked back to take a Kardia reading for some reason I’m not sure which one I took.

Take another Eliquis just to be sure at bedtime if it happens again? It’s a catch 22 situation because if I only took one dose yesterday there is a stroke risk and if I took an extra because I didn’t remember I could bleed.

This doesn’t happen much...second time. I just cannot sleep with my almost constant PVCs. I am Three days shy of my 5 months post ablation. I take Kardia readings and it looks like PVCs and no AF. I just had a bad day yesterday of 4-5 short runs (5-10 seconds) of tachy.

The first time was with multaq so I counted the pills in the vial. It was an odd number so I knew I didn’t take my bedtime dose.

Just wondering...

Not sure what to do in your specific pill mix-up situation, but if you load up your pill organizer once a week, then you will not have this problem.

Those pill organizers open up in my purse and are not little grandchildren friendly/safe.

I used to store a days worth of Rx in a childproof Rx vial when I was on 17 pills a day and refilled the next day’s drugs each evening. I’m down to 4 drugs/5pills a day. I don’t take them all at once. I space the evening three drugs 1.5 hours apart. I setup my iPhone and iWatch to remind me to take 2 in AM. My iWatch vibrated a reminder and I was thinking of Crestor and I might had taken a Eliquis. I’ll probably have to go back dumping one day’s worth of pills in a vial if this happens again.

It’s not healthy/potency wise to use a pill organizer. The more often your weekly pills are exposed to air (each time you open and shut the organizer to take each pill for a week) the less potent they become. That’s why overseas use blister packs where each pill is vacuumed sealed. I’m married to a retired pharmacist so he taught me this FYI tidbit.

“ The goal is to protect the medication from moisture and/or oxygen either of which could have a negative impact on the product’s chemical assay and reduce the efficacy of the medication.

With a blister package, each individual pill cavity protects the dose inside until you remove a pill from the package. This ensures optimal quality of the product until a patient removes each dose.”

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Isn't the half life of Eliquis 12 hours? So, if one takes them 2x/day.
1. 5mg in system
2. 5mg + 2.5mg in system
3. 5mg + 2.5mg + 1.25mg in system and so on
My thinking is, with all that accumulation missing one seems not that big a deal?????

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This is the pill organizer I use. I only take 2 prescription pills a day, but take several vitamins. I like this one because it packs well, and if you go out for the day, you can take just that day's box with you.

I had that one. I had Chemo from ‘14-15 and it left me with nerve damage to my hand. I drop things. A few times I dropped your pill organizer and the lids would open up and the pills would scatter everywhere. It would freak me out trying to find all the pills- I used to take 17 a day because of my little toddler grandkids crawling all over. I would have to look for the deadly for kids drugs first-atenolol and flecainide. Sometimes they would roll all over and I wasn’t able to find them all. I remember a rogue atenolol pill I was searching for hours. I finally found that sucker in the other side of the room, against the white baseboard wedged into the corner.

Usually since there was no safety lid on the top of the organizer lids, I would store the pill organizer in my suitcase when visiting my grandkids at their homes. I would lift it out of the suitcase the entire week of meds only to repeatedly drop it and all the weeks worth of pills would scatter. That was when I stopped using that product and I went back to buying blister packs and storing my pills in this container. Not only is it temperature control insulated, it’s in its own zipper:

[www.amazon.com]

Temperature storage is very important for drug potency. I find this product being insulated with a digital readout thermometer very helpful. It holds a lot of supplements as well. If I am visiting somewhere hot (Europe in the summer, Middle East) I would use the included ice pack -outside the bag wrapped with velro- to keep my medication not to heat past 78 degrees.

I have 2 pill organizers. One is a 6 day, the other is small for daily use. The 6 day has a seal on it. A gasket seal. This eliminates issues such as this and unfortunately I take a lot of prescription medications for other issues.
I also have my phone to tell me every 12 hours to take my Eliquis since it is so important. Most pills at pharmacies are not in air tight containers either. I know this from someone real close who is a pharmacist. Some pills do loose there strength with air such as Pradaxa but most prescription pills do not come in a air tight bottle. I also have 5 grandchildren so I am always aware of my pills and there location but a young child cannot get my daily snap pill box open.

I would take another ELIQUIS and forget about it. Stress and worry IMO are AFIB triggers.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/18/2020 06:18PM by smackman.

Smack man-good you talked to a pharmacist. My husband is one. I request at RiteAid or CVS or other chains the manufacturer bottled to be given to me sealed with the aluminum film top..so there is no oxygen loss. All they do is stick their label on a sealed bottle. I don’t get pills that are in a counter machine or bulk bottle. Flecainide comes in a generic 3 month bottle or I go overseas and buy in blister packs-each pill is sealed.

My box works just fine for me. I don't have small children around, but when my oldest son was a baby, my BIL (who was staying with us) dropped several Lipitor pills on the floor. My son was sitting on the floor and by the time I got to him, he had one in his hand. I was so afraid he had already put one in his mouth. When I called the doctor, she assured me he would be fine....that his cholesterol would just be lower.

I’m happy it works for you to use the pill organizer and you don’t have neuropathy (from chemo) in your hands and drop things. Imagine dropping your pill organizer multiple times a week...or days?

I don’t know, I should wear doc marten steel enforcement shoes for the frequency of dropping things on my foot. Glass jars and can foods are the worst. I’m laying river rocks for my landscaping. Some are big. So far none fell on my foot.

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susan.d
I’m happy it works for you to use the pill organizer and you don’t have neuropathy (from chemo) in your hands and drop things. Imagine dropping your pill organizer multiple times a week...or days?

I don’t know, I should wear doc marten steel enforcement shoes for the frequency of dropping things on my foot. Glass jars and can foods are the worst. I’m laying river rocks for my landscaping. Some are big. So far none fell on my foot.

I'm sorry about the neuropathy....it makes things even more difficult I'm sure.

Yes, you should be careful about your feet - at least always wear shoes (and good ones such as the ones you mentioned).

A couple of years ago on Thanksgiving, I was taking the turkey out of the oven to baste. I had used one of those cheap throwaway roasting pans (never again) and when I did, it bent and the turkey juices/dripping came out of the side and right onto my foot. I was wearing thick running shoes and still got a nasty blister.

I have neuropathy from surgery in 2006. I have a 18 inch scar that wraps around my left side from thoracic back surgery due to a bad motor vehicle accident. It has caused me referred pain in places I will not openly discuss. My life changed in September 2003. I learn to live with it as best as possible without going insane at times from the pain. I have a max. 20 lb occasionally weight limit on my back.
My Wife is my Rock. We live everyday thankful. I hurt but I continue on with life as best as possible and honestly I am so thankful. Many are worse off than me in this life. She refuses for me to not live life to the best of our ability.