An every-8-hours schedule you can actually keep

When your doctor means it literally

Some medicines are prescribed every eight hours rather than three times a day because the level in the blood must not dip — several antibiotics, anti-seizure medicines, and pain control in the days after surgery. In those cases spreading the doses across waking hours is not good enough, and the difference matters clinically. If you are unsure which you were given, ask; the two instructions look similar on paper and are not interchangeable.

The least painful set of hours

6 AM, 2 PM and 10 PM keeps exact eight-hour gaps while placing only the first dose early. Many people take the 6 AM dose without fully getting up, then go back to sleep. The alternatives — midnight, 8 AM, 4 PM — tend to be worse, because a midnight dose is the one most often slept through.

Overnight doses and alarms

A printed chart and a phone alarm do different jobs and work best together: the alarm gets you awake, the chart tells you exactly what to take and whether the previous dose was given. The tick sheet is particularly useful here, because at three in the morning nobody can reliably remember whether they took the last one.

Building the schedule

Choose the hours you need — the chart accepts any times, up to eight a day — and it prints them down the left with a tick box for every dose. The last dose date is printed too, so you know exactly when the course finishes.

How to make one

1. Set your three 8-hourly times
2. Check the last dose date
3. Print the tick sheet for the overnight doses

Questions

A note on safety. PillsChart reproduces the schedule you type. It does not check doses or interactions. Always follow the instructions from your doctor or pharmacist, and check the printed chart against the prescription before anyone relies on it.

More chart guides