She could wear a necklace instead if she doesn’t like the bracelet.
How far will she be from home?
You probably should help her make a plan of what should happen if she has a seizure.
Would she inform her roommate and RAs…what should they do? Call 911? Call the health dept? nothing?
What shouldn’t they do?
What if she was in class?
To me the medic alert would be more for if she was not in class or the dorm.
@bopper
She’ll be about a 25 hour drive from home, so…really far. Luckily, her epilepsy is pretty mild. She has only had 3 full generalized seizures. When she doesn’t get adequate sleep, she can occasionally have partial seizures where she doesn’t lose consciousness, but most people don’t notice those.
Yes, we will definitely have a plan in place for if it occurs and talk to her roommate about it. As I said, she’d really open, but doesn’t want a big fuss made of it either. She also will register with the health center and accessibility/disability office on campus, so that everyone is aware.
D has been on at least 1 daily med since age 3. She currently is on 5 different scripts, and is a college freshman. My biggest advice would be for them to be responsible fully for their meds by the end of high school. We sort of eased into that throughout high school and it has worked fine this year.
D takes one in the morning, one in the afternoon and three at night. She doesn’t use alarms, but it’s a very automatic response for her. Good luck!
@bookmom8, your daughter’s condition is very similar to mine own. It sounds well-controlled except when maybe a dose is skipped or she is sleep-deprived. That seizure in college was my last one; I became very careful to get my sleep and to take my meds on time.
I didn’t wear a medical bracelet/necklace either but I was also very open about my seizure condition. Bracelets, to be honest, are a pain to wear - they get in the way when I type on the computer. I just wanted to put it out there that 1) things will happen to your child; 2) things will likely be okay if she prepares others and 3) kids love popping bubble wrap but don’t like being wrapped in it 
FWIW, my parents tried to keep me “safe” and at home - it didn’t work.
Mine kept hers by the bed. The real problems arise when they go away, or are out for the night or weekend. Remembering to bring it was more of a problem than remembering to take it in the dorm room.
She took a couple of life-sustaining meds and if she found herself away, and called me in a panic, I tended to help her either buy a few pills or get another Rx for a drug store where she was located.
The first two years of college, maybe longer, I took care of some refills (life-threatening not to have the meds) and all the way through college I took care of insurance matters, which could get complicated and time-consuming.
I wanted her to have as level playing field as possible during college and taking care of insurance would have impacted her education, honestly. And her illnesses were still active (including seizures) so the less stress on her the better.
If your child is still having seizures, you might want to think about a higher level of support and reminders. I think it’s good to start off with reminders and then slowly withdraw, as the kid desires.
Well, alittle bit of sarcasm doesn’t hurt? Does the OPs student have trouble remembering as a high school student? What strategy is employed NOW that won’t work at college? If the strategy is that “mom or dad” is the trigger that’s not a good thing.
Does she remember having had a seizure? If so, that could be a pretty large motivator not to forget. She’s a senior in HS. She can for sure be 100% responsible for it now. I have a high-schooler, younger than yours, who has been completely responsible for his daily injectable meds since end of 8th grade. It works great. Even when we travel, he figures out the amount he will need and packs up all the supplies.
Remind her she is allowed to have her meds with her…in HS you are used to that zero tolerance policy so you forget you are allowed to have pills with you as an adult!
Also she may not have had many seizures…but that is when she is at home, eating regularly, sleeping regularly, with mom and dad to take care of her.
Although I’m only 55, I started having problems remembering whether I had taken my medicine or not. I’m pretty sure some mornings I took double and other mornings I took none at all. A friend of mine is a pharmacist who pioneered the use of little packages of pills in a roll, with the date and time printed on them. He provides these at no extra charge. So I started using these.
You can now see the same thing advertised on Facebook as “Pillpack.” It irritates me to see them claim they “invented” this when my friend was providing this service to people in my small town two years before they started. I might add that my friend now spends a lot of time going around speaking to pharmacy groups instead of working in his store, but I’m sure he is compensated, so good for him.
Anyway, you might consider a service of this type. It eliminates errors insofar as forgetting whether medication has been taken or not.
I think it does hurt. It could lead to the “Oh, Mom, of course I can handle it” response.
It might be better for this student to know that remembering to take medication in the correct amounts at the correct times is a challenge for many people, especially when their routines are disrupted. People with decades of experience in handling their own meds still have trouble with it. So figuring out strategies that work (including, perhaps, some kind of phone reminder or “Pillpack”) may be a good idea – not because she’s young or incompetent but because these kinds of things are a good idea for anyone who takes medication that really matters.
A daily pill reminder and an alarm is probably the best bet. I also suggest you stop the reminders right now. As another poster mentioned, both of my high schoolers are fully responsible for their own medication. They fill their pill boxes, take the pills each day, and get refills as needed.
They remember being sick before getting on the medication, and that is indeed a huge incentive to take it each day.
Two thoughts on the refills. My pharm, Wlagreens, will send you an email saying it’s time for a refill. Second, she could set a calendar reminder on her phone for 4 days out from running out.
I would suggest setting it for as far ahead of the day when she will run out as her insurance company will allow, and doing that starting right now. If she refills her prescription as early as possible every month, she will build up a bit of a stash of the medicine, which could come in handy for situations where she can’t get to the pharmacy easily – such as travel, illness, and (since it happens to be on my mind at the moment) blizzards.
Every MD my daughter had told me that handling all the medical matters herself was way too much for a college student to handle. Occasional mishaps happened, with refills and such, which did require my help. Insurance is complicated and time-consuming, so I did that. And there were times when I slept next to her dorm bed to help her through a hard time and keep her in school. If things got bad, she took a leave.
Kids do develop autonomy over time quite naturally, but when a health condition is dangerous, requiring independence can have consequences .
She is fully independent now and in a PhD program across the country, but those early college years, she certainly was not 100% independent. My support and help enabled her to finish and did not prevent future independence. It’s a process.
“If she refills her prescription as early as possible every month, she will build up a bit of a stash of the medicine, which could come in handy for situations where she can’t get to the pharmacy easily – such as travel, illness, and (since it happens to be on my mind at the moment) blizzards.”
We have done this with DS. The only thing to remember is once you have a stash to not let it sit there and have those pills expire. Make sure and use them and replace the pills in the stash on a regular basis.
If she is using a daily pill reminder accessible to you now, I would get out of the habit of reminder her verbally-- so you can still do a visual check, but the visible checks for her are made less.
If your D or family has (or is thinking about getting) a fitness tracker (fitbit, up, etc.) they do vibrating alarms, which are effective at waking people up and getting one’s attention but inconspicuous to others (like a roommate or classmates).
I disagree that college students can’t handle medical issues on their own. Perhaps some can’t, but many college students handle serious medical issues all on their own. There’s no universal, you have to know yourself and your individual student.
For me, the only thing that worked was setting a timer on my phone and carrying pills in my backpack which I always had with me.
just take it at a certain time of day.
Re medic alert bracelet, one of my friend’s sons is a type 1 diabetic. He had a very cool looking alert bracelet tattooed onto his wrist before he went to college. Seems to be a thing with the kids!
Romani, my kid is very mature, but she had many health conditions, and her seizures were still active at times. It depends on the situation. My parenting style in general has been to stay in a neutral position that encourages but doesn’t require kids to take the reins. I have yet to be disappointed: all three are very independent and appreciate the support they had when they weren’t. Type 1 is particularly cumbersome and running out of insulin without a car to get to a drug store on a Sunday night, or pump insertions, was too serious to play around with. Kids who are only 18 are still young, and leaving home and starting college takes a huge amount of psychic energy. I am not suggesting that parents serve as crutches forever, only trying to insert a little flexibility into the discussion. They DO grow up without us forcing it too much.
The original post wasn’t about this anyway, it was about remembering to take meds, but for us, that was related to making sure she HAD the meds on hand!! AND that insurance covered them. And that the supply companies mailed them on schedule. And that the meds didn’t have gluten. Etc. If a kid is actively dealing with health issues, and coping heroically with course work, it sure does help if a parent does some of this drudgery. The time spent on the phone over insurance matters alone was worth all the papers in one class
Getting all Rx’s on the same day is a huge help but every time she achieved it, something would happen to disturb the synchrony.