It’s common to be taking more than one medication if you have a chronic illness like heart failure. You may be taking medications to help with blood pressure, cholesterol, and fluid retention, and more. You might also be treating other conditions, such as type 2 diabetes.
Taking multiple medications can be confusing and even overwhelming. Each one comes with instructions for how and when to take them. Following those instructions may help improve your treatment outcomes — but it may be hard to keep all those details straight.
Your healthcare team may be able to help relieve some of this burden. If you’re feeling overwhelmed or have questions, don’t be afraid to bring this up with your doctors.
What are ways to simplify my heart failure treatment?
1. Ask your doctor if there are any ways to tweak your medication regimen.
There are a few ways your doctor may be able to help simplify your heart failure treatment. For example, they may be able to adjust the timing of when you take certain medications. It may seem small, but this may make a big difference.
In some cases, you may also be able to combine medications into a single pill. This is called a compounded medication. This isn’t an option with every type of medication, but if your medications are eligible, it may be very helpful.
2. Use a pill organizer to help you remember when to take each medication.
Pill organizers come in many sizes and formats. You can get some with large compartments, so they can hold several pills at once.
You can also find some that have multiple compartments per day. Some have two per day (morning and evening), while others may have four or even five (morning, lunch, afternoon, dinner, bedtime, etc.).
Pill organizers can help you remember to take these medications, but it’s also a visual way to see if you’ve already taken a pill. If you ever can’t remember if you’ve taken your pill yet, you can look at the pill organizer and see. This can help you avoid missing or doubling up on doses.
3. Try an automatic pill dispenser.
If you like pill organizers but want to take it to the next level, an automatic pill dispenser is an option. These range from basic to highly sophisticated with multiple features, such as:
Using alarms and flashes to notify you when it’s time to take a specific pill
Dispensing the right medication for you
Connecting to your smartphone
Requiring a password to access the medications or change the settings
In some cases, a pharmacy may also be able to fill your automatic pill dispenser for you.
4. Try to align your medications to the same refill schedule.
It can be a burden to visit the pharmacy multiple times a month each time one of your heart failure medications needs a refill. It may help to get all of these medications on the same refill schedule. That way, you can enjoy fewer trips to the pharmacy.
Plus, it may be hard to keep track of multiple refill schedules. You may have a higher risk of not noticing that it’s time to refill one of your medications, and you may run out and miss a dose or two. That’s important since missing doses of your heart failure medications increases the risk of hospitalization and mortality.
5. Write down a list of your medications and how to take them.
You may be able to remember rules for one medication, but it can get tricky if you’re leaving multiple sets of instructions to your memory.
It may help to track in a journal or on a piece of paper the most important details about each medication. Keep it somewhere where you might see it, such as on the inside of your medicine cabinet door. This way, you can reference it whenever you’re unsure.
What should I do if I need more support with my heart failure management?
Reach out to your healthcare team if you need more support. They can provide encouragement, adjustments to your plan, or referrals to other professionals who can help. They may also be able to help you find a support group with other people who are experiencing similar issues.
Dr. Bloom is a Cardiologist, an Associate Professor of Medicine at Stony Brook University Medical Center, a fellow of the American College of Cardiology and the Heart Failure Society of America.
References
American Heart Association. (2023). Medications used to treat heart failure.
American Heart Association. (2023). What causes heart failure?
MedlinePlus. (2022). Taking multiple medications safely.
Wu, J-R., et al. (2018). Medication adherence mediates the relationship between heart failure symptoms and cardiac event-free survival in patients with heart failure. The Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing.
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