As do most VOOPs [very old old-persons] I devote about an hour each day to sorting out and swallowing the tiny pills and large capsules which keep me vooping. Having completed the tiresome task of counting and checking, and gulping, I mentally bow to MECCA [medical experts creating comfortable aging], and sit down to read the paper.

I have no problems with the capsules because they don’t roll, but the round pills, of several very small sizes, roll out of sight very quickly, and to a VOOP they are difficult to locate and pick up.

I suppose there are non-rolling small pills made but I’ve never seen any. Something to do with machine-design I suppose. But if round pills have to be round, could the machine that makes them be adapted to produce a top circumference and a bottom circumference that differ slightly? Such a tapered shape would stop a determined roller from diving silently off the table edge, forcing it to roll in ever-decreasing circles instead.
-- rayfo, Oct 31 2000

Capsules don't roll?

I've always had the opposite problem. Pills mostly fall flat (like a coin) and stay put; capsules roll all over...
-- egnor, Oct 31 2000


Comment from the SAC (Swallow A Cork) dept.: Yeah, right!

Why don't we put our heads together and design a child-proof (or not) cap for pill vials that twists clockwise to capture a pill from the bottle and counterclockwise to pop out the pill to your hand?

Next up: The easy-grip syringe with magnifying visor.
-- reensure, Oct 31 2000


Modifying the screw-top only might work, using the eel-trap principle. Invert-shake to admit number of pills you need into transparent top part of cap as you watch. Unscrew top part of cap to get pills out. Replace top part of cap. The bottom part of the cap remains in place for filling the container. Bottom part might need anticlockwise threading on to container.
-- rayfo, Nov 01 2000


I've often wondered, "Why PEZ?" Those cool dispensers are so efficient at popping out one little candy at a time. Maybe a combination of the transparent top idea and putting a PEZ-style pill popper-outer dingy on the cap?

The best dispensers are still, IMHO, the birth control pill (BCP) dispensers. Maybe a service could be set up to recycle the thousands of these marvelous BCP dispensers for to be reloaded by voop-med-users.
-- reensure, Nov 01 2000


I hate the BCP dispensers. The one I use (ortho tri-phasil) makes it a PITA to get the pills out; it's like trying to get sudafed out of those blister-paks, only with a bunch of plastic in the way. Additionally, I'm annoyed that they give you a new dispenser every month; that's a lot of plastic to waste, and my pharmacy won't give me just the blister-pak alone.

Grrrr.
-- clynne, Nov 03 2000


I believe I know what your problem is, clynne. Of the multitute of variations on the theme, the design to which you refer makes the least sense. A courtesy here would be to set one's pencil down while looking through one's pockets, and make it available to BCP users, since a pencil works much better than the fingertip to force out those pills. They are the only instance, BTW, of a pill I recall forcing through its unit dose package edgewise. Real PITA, they are. They whole unit dose concept is .... too commercialized.

You need the strength of Hercules to get an aspirin or a celebrex from the pack, but don't rattle those tylox, buspar, or serzone, lest they fly out of their flimsy foil and put out your eye!!
-- reensure, Nov 03 2000


To any VOOP with merrily rolling, dropping and disappearing pills AND capsules...simply open your medication over a thick, dark, dry washcloth. Et viola!
-- JillMaria, Feb 23 2001



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