Bipolar Disorder meds: Yikes! I almost made a pretty bad mistake…..

I  had a pretty scary experience today.

I am good about taking my medications. I basically have no life if I don’t use my Lamictal along with my management plan. They can’t work alone- so meds are my lifeline.

I have small amounts of my meds in many locations as I move around town a lot and may forget to put my daily meds container in my purse.

Here’s where I put them:

1. My glove compartment

2. My mom’s house

3. My house

4. My daily dose in my purse- I fill this bottle every night.

Today, I was putting a bottle of meds at my mom’s house and had my daily bottle in my backpack.

I took out both bottles at once.

My daily meds are 700mg Lamictal  (my Lamictal is much higher than most doses), Ativan for sleeping if it’s a rough night, a pain pill for a hip injury that I use if the hip is driving me crazy and I can’t sit and work- and an iron pill.

The other bottle had the extras for my mom’s cupboard – so a lot more pills.

I first emptied my correct dose in my right hand.

Then I opened the extra supply bottle and poured out the contents into my left hand to check how much I had in there.   And then, believe it or not… as crazy and awful as this is- instead of taking the small daily dose- I cupped the hand with all kind of pills in it and put it in my mouth!

I immediately realized what I had done and only a few went into my mouth- they were all pretty wet when I spit them out.  None were swallowed.

Lamictals….Iron pills… Ativans… and two pain pills all at once! Yikes!

That was some fast spitting!

My point:  It’s hard for people with bipolar disorder to gets their meds straight every day. Can you imagine having to take so many pills throughout the day- every day of your life!  It sometimes gets really confusing.

The meds from my mouth dried and all is fine. I’m lucky they didn’t disintegrate!

I’m sure you have stories too.

Whew, disaster averted!

Julie