Complaint about pill packaging. Has anyone else faced this barrier to taking the medication they are prescribed?

My great aunt Jerrie had a great idea: A small toolbox, portable, with an assortment of scissors, pliers, tweezers, etc. that she kept close at hand. Basically it extended the strength and dexterity of her hands. Managed very well until her death at 91 years. Please keep in mind that much of this packaging has to do with making it tamperproof. If your elder is having trouble, can you study the packaging and perhaps come up with workarounds, especially if there are no small children to worry about?

I wrote my post in frustration last night. I did not expect to receive all these wonderful replies.

Humour is a good thing.

I even handed a package to my 24 year old son. He is a strong young man who works in construction. When he went to open it the pill went flying.

I found a couple other RXs from when Dad snow birded to NZ. All of them come from the manufacturer blister packed. Some were great as they had the day of the week marked on the foil, a tiny font, but something. The ones that were tablets, were the push through variety, it was the ones that you have to separate each section in order to fold the corner, then pull the tiny foil tab that worry me.

To clarify, the expired medication pick up program is to ensure it is safely disposed of in a rural community where there is not even garbage pick up (there is a drop off, 2 days a week), people often flush their old medications, but then it is in the water table.

I used a steak knife and cut open the 120 individual pill compartments.

The grand total was 8+ cups of expired vitamins, OTC and other medications. 2 cups of RX medications, some that were over 40 years old. 3 boxes of unused lancets and needles for a insulin pen. I tossed in the regular garbage 3 packages of blood sugar test strips, all expired.

In 2018, I filled 1.5 gallon bags of expired vitamins and OTC medication. I tossed everything except RXs that expired prior to 2016. These were pills emptied from their containers too. I filled a milk crate with the containers.

What really ticks me off is there are so many people who cannot afford diabetes supplies, or prescriptions and here I am tossing it.

The oldest RX I found was not dated. It was for penicillin and had to have been for my grandmother. She died in 1982.

Dad has pills squirreled away in film canisters, some labeled most a variety of pills in one container.

You need a wily 3 yo to open things for you. Seriously, my grandson is a flippin' raccoon! I can't pop the 'EZ open' bottles but he can in one quick motion. Any package that requires a little more effort, he can chew his way in. Those 'pop out' pills?? They are all over the floor if I am not 100% looking at him ALL THE TIME.

In truth--it really is about dexterity and ability to maneuver small things. On top of THAT is the inserts with lettering so small we CANNOT read it.

Watching DH sort his many pills is a sad/funny thing. He is flinging pills right and left...and can't see when they land on the floor or on the bed. Luckily we have grands who don't eat everything they find. I do a literal 'sweep' after he's organized his pills for the week. He's requested bottles without childproof lids and we keep them up high. That's helped. His BP meds are so small he cannot see them when they fall out of the bottle.

I don't know what to do besides ask for the pills in bottles when possible, instead of blister packs.

Some over-the-counter meds can be a big pain to open. Just this morning I was trying to open a jar of vitamins. I must have looked 20 times around the top of the bottle to find the clear zip so I could take the safety wrapper off the top of the bottle....

then open the cap to find on top of the bottle the safety pull tab and it not easy to hold and takes the strength of Superman to pull off the bottle. I may need to use a needle-nose set of pliers the next time.

No wonder elders nap so much, there are just so many things that need opening in their daily lives that are not easy :P

It's an evil conspiracy to mess with people's heads.

I can imagine that your dad thought that they must not be that important or they wouldn't be in adult proof packaging.

A small set of craft scissors saved my sanity and my dad was able to gain access without losing any fingers or skin.

Countrymouse, you are hilarious the way you so aptly describe situations. Thank you for the laugh.

Like you, I'm in my mid-50s, good hand dexterity, good vision but feel the same! I keep a pair of cuticle scissors just for such use (larger scissors, I've found, will often cut through more than one blister pocket). The plastic on some of the blister packs is astoundingly tough... even trying to push out a pill through the foil once you manage to peel back the paper or plastic can be challenging.

It's all about preventing lawsuits against the pharma companies I'm sure.

Can you just surrender the pills without removing them from the blister packs? Or what about using a box cutter- run the blade down the row of pills and then pop them out? Since the med is being destroyed it won't matter if you damage them.

About once a day I muse on pill packaging, and end up having violent fantasies about making the designers use it when they themselves become ill, frail, elderly, arthritic in the fingers, visually impaired, and fatigued.

I hardly know where to start. The waggly packets, the cast iron packets, the microscopic tablets, the horse-pill tablets, the blister packs so deep you practically need a collier's lamp and a rope ladder to get to the bottom of them, the blister packs made of flimsy plastic that bends when it mustn't, but almost impenetrable foiled paper that your 96 year old client is presumably supposed to rip open with his dentures...

Ugh.

And the Patient Information Leaflets that most clients believe are there purely to prevent them putting the tablets back in the box.

Actually, I'm quite enjoying getting this off my chest!

Pivotells are good, but somebody needs to fill them. AND the patient has to have space to keep them to hand, which is also easier said than done. The reason they are better than most dosette boxes or pill minders is that the patient can't accidentally open the wrong box: each dose is dispensed at the right time, with an audible alarm - I think there might be some with a flashing light too.

Sigh sigh sigh... You realise, of course, that the little foil tab was somebody's idea of a brilliant new foolproof method? It's easy! No more having to squeeze the pill through the packaging! - you just pull on the tab and Bob's your uncle! Visualise taking that designer warmly by the ear and dragging him off to see the average ninety year old's fingers in action...

Cut them open with a scissors or small box cutter. My hubs has a migraine medicine that is the bane of his existence. He has numbness in the first 3 fingertips of his dominant hand. He cannot wrangle those stupid pills out of the blister pack. I can't even do it, and I have all my sensation and dexterity. So we just use a scissor. You are correct that many pill packages are not senior friendly. I suggest you send an email to the company outlining your experience and concerns. The only way a company knows if there's a problem is if enough people complain about it.

That's an interesting observation, I guess it's a good reminder that these kind of pill containers are not the best solution for everybody. I've had family members who use the blister packs but I've never tried to get into one myself, now you've made me curious about how difficult they think it is, I kind of remember someone cutting into theirs with a knife or scissors? Of course if you are actually using them for your daily meds you only have to open one at a time 🤔