Prescription drugs help We go from chronic pain to birth control, but it’s hard to remember to take a pill every day, especially if you have several medications to keep track of. Frequently missing a pill or taking too much can seriously damage your health and make your medication ineffective, so it’s best to keep an eye on it.
Some medications are packaged by the day, and you can always get cheap kits like this one ($10), but it’s also easy to set up medication reminders on your phone. We’ll have your Android or iPhone remind you to pop the pill and track your medication in a few different ways.
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How to set reminders on iPhone
There are several ways to set medication reminders on your iPhone.
Use the Health app on iOS 16
Several enticing new features are coming to iOS 16, including a drug feature in the Apple Health app. The final iOS 16 release will be out this fall, and we’ve been using the drug options from the iOS 16 beta. Here’s how it works:
- Open the Health app and tap browse bottom right tab and scroll down to click drug.
- tap add medicine, start typing a name, and a suggestion pops up. If you click the camera icon on the right, you can use the camera to scan the drug label. (notes: Currently only valid in the US. Using this feature in the iOS 16 beta in the UK, I had to manually add the name, drug type and strength. )
- choose frequency You need to take each medication by choosing regular interval, on specific days of the weekor as required.
- You can then set the time of day to take the medicine.If you need to take multiple times a day, you can continue to tap add time Choose from different times and doses.
- Now choose the shape of the medicine for easy identification (handy if you have to take more than one tablet).
- Finally, you can choose the color of the pill and background. You can also add alternate display names and notes.
- Once added, you will see your medicines listed in the Health app by browse > drug There is a timeline at the top and notes the actions you need to take each day.You mark a drug by clicking on it while you’re taking it take (You can also log doses from the Medicines app on Apple Watch).
- under your medicines You can view consumption and click log Add any doses you may have forgotten to record ahead of time. If you need to record something from a previous shot, click on the timestamp to change it.
- If you run out of a drug and no longer need to take it, you can your medicines and scroll down to the bottom Archived drugs or remove drug.
- You can also share health data, including medication data, with a click share tab in the Health app and select share with others.
Apple also provides information about medications in the Health app, which flags potential interactions if you’re taking multiple medications that may interact to cause side effects or reduce efficacy.
Using Siri and Reminders
If you don’t already have iOS 16, you can always use Siri to set up basic reminders. For example, you can say: “Hey Siri, remind me to take my medicine every morning at 9am.”
You can also set, view, and edit reminders in the Reminders app on your iPhone.Open the Reminders app and tap add list in the bottom right corner and name it “drugs”.Now you can tap new reminder Add the drug name in the bottom left corner, choose a reminder time, and set other details.
Using the Medication App
The App Store offers several dedicated pill reminder and medication tracking apps. If we had to choose one, it would be Medisafe Medication Management (or Medisafe Pill Reminder in the UK). It’s a quick process to set up your profile, add medications, and set up medication reminders. You can mark when you take your medication and record and track the time. It’s easy to see what else you need to take each day and what you’ve already taken each day. You can also enter the amount of each medication and have the app remind you to refill when your dose is low. You can share all of this information with your caregiver.
