Easy ways to keep up with your vitamins

It's SUPER important to take your supplements every day. Deficiencies can have a serious impact on your health, and can put you at a great risk. Here are a few things you can do to make sure you take your vitamins on time; feel free to add your own ideas!

1. Plan them for the week
I have a pill container with one section for each day of the week. On Sunday night, I fill it up with all of my meds for the day: vitamins, psych meds, and anything else I might need (allergy meds, etc.). Before bed, I just open the slot for that day, snag my handful of pills, and swallow them down.

2. Make an association
Take your vitamins at the same time you do something else. I take my pills when I brush my teeth, since I already have a cup of water. You could take them when you get out of the shower, when you make your coffee, or at another time that works for you.

3. Set a timer
Set up a timer on your smartphone to remind you to take your vitamins. This is especially helpful when your pills are spread throughout the day. You can have a morning alarm to take one multi and your calcium, and an evening alarm for your multi and iron. You can even get timers that attach to your pill bottles!

4. Keep backups on hand
I have a small pill container that I keep in my desk at work. If I forget to take my morning pills-- which happens fairly often, it's hard to get out of the house with a toddler!-- I can just grab what I need from my pocket pack.

These are great tips.

For me, my biggest hurdle is remembering all the doses of calcium (I take 4 a day). It helps when I keep them visible on the counter. I tend to ignore the closed pill containers, but not an open shot glass with them in it.

Oh, I made an emergency pack for the office last night after reading this.

Wonderful! Way to go!

I've been using the daily pill containers for years as I take a number of meds, I take Calcium, at Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner, they 2 Prenatal Multis and Omega 3 at bedtime. I've now added a container with the Calcium that I keep in my lunch bag, so try to remember lunch time vitamins.

Big thing I've been forgetting lately is my inhalers and insulin, probably because I've been feeling pretty good, but I'm trying to get my A1C down into the normal range, so if I need a little help still with than I'm good.

I use a total of four pill containers. I do two weeks worth of vitamins and take them three times per day. One container is AM/PM and the second one is just one per day (for a total of three per day) and I have two sets so I only have to do it every two weeks. I keep a spreadsheet of the different pills, how many each serving, and then I take them. At this point I have it memorized but will make whatever changes once a year for my labs.

I keep thinking I should keep some extra's at my desk in case i forget them one day but so far so good.

I bought myself this pill case from Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074MC6HJR/ref=oh_aui_deta ilpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

it has 4 daily compartments and each day's case comes out of the box so I can bring the whole thing with me for the day. usually I take my multi vit, probiotic, zyrtec and PPI in the morning and every 3 days or so an extra b12. then calcium citrate late morning/lunch time and the second one late afternoon...then after dinner, my 2nd multi, extra iron and stool softener. I spent a lot of time searching for one that would be big enough to fit all of it LOL...this one is perfect.
I just got one for DH too.

I bought little travel plastic pill containers from The Container Store (I must have 5-6 of them). Every day when I take my morning vitamins, I automatically fill one of the pill containers with my afternoon vitamins and throw them in my purse. I also always have an extra "evening" stash of pills in my purse just in case I go out without taking them.

When I first had surgery I kept a bottle of calcium on my desk but that never seemed to work for me. I do much better this way. I take my afternoon pills about 30 minutes before lunch.

Julie - is it ok to take a calcium with our multi in the morning? My multi does have iron & calcium which is why I didn't know if I could add the calcium on top. I don't take iron yet as I'm pre-op and my Hgb is 14. Thanks!

If your multi vitamin contains iron then you should take calcium separately and not count the iron or calcium in that multi in your daily totals for each. Best to take a multi that does not contain iron and supplement your ccalcium and iron as necessary. Centrum and One-A-Day have iron-free multis, which are usually marketed to the over 50 demographic.