When the person you care for refuses their dose

Started 7 February 2026 · 14 replies · 99 hearts · read 1.1k times

GwythFishguard, UK · 7 February 2026

5 months ago

Starting a thread on this because it keeps coming up in ones and twos: When the person you care for refuses their dose

Practical question, and possibly a silly one.

What I would find most useful is not advice. It is somebody describing what their version of this was, and how long it went on for.

Here is where I am. The medication side has been more or less as described, and the part nobody prepared me for is everything around it: what to say to people, how to plan a week, and how to tell the difference between a thing to endure and a thing to raise.

Not looking for a plan. Just company and whatever anyone has found.

SerenLlandudno, UK

Can I gently push back on one thing? Not the substance, just the framing — you have written twice that you should be coping better. Who told you that?

8me too 7

LinnetKendal, UK

My pharmacist was more use than anyone. Ten minutes at the counter, no appointment, no charge.

WrenFacilitatorLeeds, UK

the reply above said something I want to sit with for a second.

Gently: you have apologised three times in a post where you have done nothing that requires an apology.

BrennaEnniskillen, NI

I keep a two-line diary and it is the only reason I could answer this question about myself. Worth starting even now.

KeeleyBlackpool, UK

the reply above — yes, and the bit that took me longest to accept was the next part.

Different experience here, for balance. Mine did not improve and in the end I stopped, and that was the right call for me. Both outcomes exist.

LandoLeeds, UK

The phrase that unlocked my appointment was asking what specifically she wanted me to watch for. It moved us from reassurance to a plan in about thirty seconds.

11me too 1

ZoraSarajevo, BA

Two things that helped me, neither of them clever: small amounts more often, and drinking a lot more than felt necessary.

PamSouthport, UK

Reading the reply above, I recognised more of that than I expected to.

I would take that to a clinician rather than to us, and I would do it this week. Not because it is definitely serious — because it is the sort of thing that is much easier to rule out than to worry about.

IzoldaVilnius, LT

the reply above — yes, and the bit that took me longest to accept was the next part.

I did exactly the same and felt terrible about it. You have not done anything wrong.

GigiNaples, IT

#10

Practical, boring answer: write the three questions down before you go in. I have never once remembered them otherwise.

IdrisCardiff, UK

#11

The thing that changed it for me was going slower, agreed with my prescriber. I am not suggesting you do that. I am saying the conversation exists.

4me too 1

PipBristol, UK

#12

Have you got anyone who can be with you when you do it? It made an enormous difference to me and I felt silly asking.

WrenFacilitatorLeeds, UK

#13

Noticing out loud that this conversation has drifted into comparison. That happens without anyone intending it and it does not help anyone. Let us come back to the person who asked.

ÖzlemIzmir, TR

#14

the reply above said something I want to sit with for a second.

Coming back to this a fortnight later to say it settled. Leaving the update because I hate reading threads that stop.