The Pillbox Principle: A Simple Trick to Stress-Free Medication Management

0:00 Coming up on this episode of the healthy, wealthy, and wise podcast. Are there any questions? Okay. We have a couple. Okay. Um, my mom was just recently diagnosed with dementia. Um, and they put her on, she's on two different medications, but someone also told me that an over the counter prevention, um, is a good thing to start her on. What do you think about that? That's an excellent question. Welcome to the healthy, wealthy, and wise podcast with Dr. William T. Choctaw, MD, JD, this podcast will provide you with tools and actionable information you can use to help live a more healthy, wealthy, and wise life.

0:47 It's powered by the over 50 years of medical experience of this Yale university medical school trained surgeon, who is also a Western state law school trained attorney. With executive experience being a. Former Mayor of Walnut, California, as well as the current chairman of the Nonprofit Servants Arms, and as president of Choctaw Medical Group Incorporated. This is the leadership masterclass edition already in progress. Hi the world. You gonna remember to do that now? Most of us think we can. I said, oh, got this, no problem. Two times a day, three times a day, every other day. At some point, you're going to say, Did I take that?

1:31 Did I take that medicine? I think I did. I think I did. And, you know, and, and here's what, I can't ask my wife. She's got to know whether I took the medicine or not. So she can't help me. I don't know. Did you? My point is, it's complicated. It's complicated. And so, why not make it simpler? Get a pillbox. They're cheap. Five dollars, five bucks, five, ten bucks. Whatever. And you can get different size. But, what it does is, you put Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, okay? Put that pill in that pill box. The ones that you take every other day, you get a bigger pill box.

2:12 Because this is Sunday morning, Sunday evening. You put it in the Sunday morning part, or put it in the Sunday evening part. You can get an even bigger pill box that has Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Sunday night, and you put it in the pill box. Why? Because you got enough on your mind. The last thing you want to worry about is, did I take medicine A on Tuesday or Wednesday? And it's hard to remember. And then you aren't sure. And some doctors will say, okay, if you missed this, then just skip it, right? Just skip it. So then you say, okay, do I just skip it? I do I just take it?

2:53 And what if I've taken it twice and don't know? And then you, and then that, what does that do? That creates anxiety. And what does that do? That increases your blood pressure. Because now you said, oh my god, I can't remember. Oh, I'm a terrible person, you know. And if you're a caregiver, you feel even worse. I'm supposed to be taking care of mom, and I'm supposed to know even worse You You tell mom what to do, you lay it out for her, she forgets. because she has dementia, you come home and say, Mom, your pills are still on, you didn't take it, then you yell at her. Mom says, why you yelled at me? I put your medication out there and you didn't take it anyway. Didn't remember?

3:33 Well, I didn't know you wanted me to take it today. I thought that was for tomorrow. right? Get a pill box. Get a pill box. Even better. I say you don't take it in medication. You don't need it in medication. Christmas is coming up. You know, I don't know, a neighbor, a friend, um, uh, member of the family, send a pill box as a gift and say, God bless you. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas! Why? Because what are you doing? You're helping them to take better care of themselves. That's a good thing. That's a good thing. Because remember the first belief? Life is about being of service to others.

4:13 You are serving them, right? By buying them a, I don't know, 15, 20 dollar pill box. Okay? In summary, dementia is not a disease. It is a normal change of the brain over time. Uh, it is an umbrella term for cognitive or thinking problems. Um, Alzheimer's is a disease. And Alzheimer's is the most common cause of dementia. To determine what you have or your member has, um, uh, uh, see your physician, uh, and get a good checkup. And, and to get a diagnosis, excuse me, a proper diagnosis. We talked about the common symptoms, and what studies show is that by Managing your blood pressure more efficiently, you put less pressure on the brain, uh, and you decrease, like I said, you do have the gene that's going to create dementia.

5:05 You decrease that, uh, by putting your brain in a better environment. Very quickly, if you missed some of these presentations, you can go to your church website, St. Stephen's website, uh, stsbc, uh, click on. Um, masterclass, you can go to either events or ministry, go all the way down and you can find this information. Or you can go to our website and you can get all this information. And finally, as we always like to say, be the change you want to see in the world. Are there any questions? Okay. We have a couple. Okay. Um, my mom was just recently diagnosed with dementia, um, and they put her on, she's on two different medications, but someone also told me that an over the counter, um, is a good thing to start her on.

6:02 What do you think about that, or should I? Okay, that's an excellent question. About 15 years ago, 15 20 years ago, the government changed this policy for pharmaceuticals that allowed them to directly market to patients. It used to be pharmaceuticals could not market to patients. You'd have to go through your physician. And that's why you have now all of these medications to Prevagen, and everything you can imagine, uh, you'll see it online. I personally am skeptical about all of them, um, and so, to answer your question, I would first, I would start with your physician, because a lot of it depends on what is her medical condition, what else is she taking, what is she allergic to, or not allergic to.

6:53 I am not a fan of buying stuff because it's online or on television, um, without going through your regular physician. Now if your regular physician says, Oh yeah, go get it. That's fine. Um, I don't believe that there's any quick fix for anything. Um, I can remember 20, 30 years ago, it used to be weight loss. You take this pill, you're going to lose 20 pounds in 30 days. You know, then they show a picture of the silhouette and all of a sudden, I don't believe any of it. I think this is all part of the same thing. Uh, it's to get your money, right? So, you have, uh, medical expertise at your disposal.

7:34 Make a phone call or whatever, but go through the docs. Most of these things you'll find will say it does this, it does that, and then there's the disclaimer and they cause blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And if you doubt that, listen to them on television. They say it real quiet and real fast. But they talk about all the bad stuff. You could get, you could die. You could have blah, blah, blah. You can get sick and on and on and on and on. So, bottom line, talk to your physician. It may or may not work. I don't know. But, uh, talk to your physician and see what they say. Yes, ma'am. Will it, if you live long enough, will it automatically get into Alzheimer's, or what?

8:18 Does it stop, or what? That's a good question. I honestly don't know. Uh, but I do believe that some dementia just stays dementia. Um, I don't believe that all dementia switches over to Alzheimer's because there are other types of dementia. Okay. Yeah. Yes ma'am. Is it possible to stay at the same level of dementia that it may not progress? Is it possible that, you know, for you or for, you know, individuals, some are just going to stay at the forgetting the keys and others are going to. I would think that it probably is for some people because I think people do it differently. Okay. that some people may stay at one level for a longer period of time than others, whereas others may rapidly go through those stages.

9:05 So I, I think that's possible. Yes, yes. fatty acid Uh, brain health is, brain health is important, is it not? Your brain health helps you, uh. Well, I think health is important, and I think if you eat a well balanced meal, um, a well balanced diet, you will get all that. Uh, it's sort of in the, in the category of the the Prevagen type thing. Um, uh, the whole, uh, vitamin industry is based on that. Um, and again, I would run all that through your primary care physician. Yes. And now things like garlic, um, my neighbor lived to be 98 and his, his, uh, grandson says He, Mr.

9:54 Nash used to just bite a clove, a garlic. I said, okay. That's pretty tough stuff. There. There, there are a hundred different stories because people would choose something that they think makes a difference. But my express, express impressions been, it's never something simple. You know? It could be a lot of different reasons that they, maybe the jeans were just for them to be 98 may have nothing to do with what they eat, and I think that that may be the case also. Okay. There you go. There you go. Everybody has a story. Everybody has a story. Is some foods more anti, uh, anti inflammatory conditions that we have, you know, like I can't even think to say the word, turmeric?

10:39 Well, yeah. There are different types of vitamins and different types of foodstuffs. Uh, but they all do. Um, thank you for listening to the Healthy, wealthy and Wise Podcast with Dr. William t Choctaw, MDJD. You can listen again to this and any of the previous episodes. Leave a comment or pose questions to the doctor by going to www.hwwp.com. That's www.th wwp.com and you've got it. It's also available wherever you get your pod. Be sure to follow, like, share, and subscribe if you haven't already. Then tune in for the next episode of the Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise podcast with Dr.

11:24 William T. Choctaw, MD, JD. A production of Changemakers Communications, LLC.