Skip to main content

App Support FAQ

How to add notes to your medications?

Notes on medications can be used for a number of things including:

To add a note to a medication within Drugs.com Pill Reminder:

  1. Open Pill Reminder
  2. Tap Medications (bottom left)
  3. Find the medication you wish to add a note to and tap it.
  4. Tap Edit (top right)
  5. Scroll down to the Notes field and tap it to start editing. The keyboard will pop up.
  6. Type the note as desired
  7. Tap Save (top right)

How to export your history?

If you've been recording your pills as taken or skipped including dosages and/or notes about how you feel, or simply want to take a manual backup of the data.

You can export that history from the app to your email and here's how to do it.

  1. Open Pill Reminder
  2. Tap More (bottom right)
  3. Tap Email History
  4. Choose - How many days to export - by tapping the value.
  5. If you have entered People records - Choose who to export for - by tapping that row. If you haven't entered People records you won't see this option.
  6. Tap the Export button.
  7. An email dialog will pop up with your history reported in it. Email this to yourself, or whomever you desire.

How to record an as needed/PRN dose

To record each dose of an As Needed/PRN medication you can do either:

  1. Tap Medications
  2. Find the medication in the list and tap it.
  3. Tap the Record PRN Pill Taken Now
OR
  1. Tap Reminders
  2. Tap the + button (top right)
  3. Choose Record Med Taken as Needed/PRN
  4. Find the medication in the list and tap it.

You can also record as needed/PRN doses for medications with a reminder schedule if required.

How to keep a list of medications you are allergic to?

Thanks to all those that have written to us asking for this feature, we are looking at something a little more intuitive than what I describe below but in the mean time I wanted to share how some users are using the Person field for this purpose.

  1. Tap Medications
  2. Tap the + icon (top left)
  3. Fill in the medication name, strength, form as required.
  4. Enter any special notes about the allergic reaction using the notes field.
  5. Tap the Person field.
  6. Tap the + Add Person row at the end of the list of people.
  7. For Nickname enter "Allergic to"
  8. Tap Done to save the new "Allergic to" entry.
  9. Now Tap on the "Allergic to" entry to select that for this medication.
  10. Tap the Save button to save the medication.

You'll now see a list of medications under the heading Allergic to in your medications list and when you export medications list or your history you can include or exclude this list as required.

Note: If you haven't previously assigned the medications you take to yourself you'll probably want to do this so that you can then list them above the "Allergic to" medications.

  1. Tap medications
  2. Scroll down to the Unassigned section
  3. Tap a medication
  4. Tap the edit button.
  5. Tap the Person field.
  6. Tap + Add person
  7. Enter a nickname for yourself e.g. Me and optionally First name, Last name and any notes.
  8. Tap Done
  9. Tap the Edit button
  10. See the 3 bar grab handle that appeared on the right of each row, tap and hold the one on your entry's row then drag your entry to the top.
  11. Tap done to save the ordering. This has now made your medications be listed first then "Allergic to", also new medications will be assigned to you by default.
  12. Tap your entry to select it as the person for the medication.
  13. Tap Save to save the changes to the medication.
  14. Repeat steps 1,2 and 3 then 12 and 13 for each unassigned medication.

How to enter notes into your history

In a recent update we added a notes field for taken or skipped records so that you can record any extra details e.g. why you skipped or how you felt or pain levels.

To use this feature:
  1. Either you are alerted and you tap view on the alert, the Reminders tab is loaded OR you are in the app already and tap the Reminders tab.
  2. Find the taken pill you wish to record details for. Tap the middle to right hand side (away from the check box) of the row to see the details screen. NB: The left hand side will mark pill taken/skipped/missed you probably use this all the time.
  3. If the pill is already marked taken or skipped. Tap the Record Pill Taken Now button or Record Pill Skipped button as appropriate.
  4. Now you'll be able to edit details for the taken/skipped record including Notes. Scroll down to the Notes field and tap it to edit.
  5. Enter the notes you wish to add, then tap Done when you are finished to save.

How to skip a dose?

In the latest release we've added the ability to mark a reminded dose as skipped there are a couple ways to do this but I'll start with the listing.

  1. Tap Reminders
  2. Find the dose you skipped
  3. Tap the the checkbox to mark it taken (checkmark). And then tap it again to mark it skipped (crossmark).

This marks a dose as skipped at the time you tapped, if you need to mark it skipped at a different time or if you find the check box hard to tap you can do these on the detail screen for the reminder/dose.

  1. Tap Reminders
  2. Find the dose you skipped
  3. Tap towards the right of the line (away from the checkbox) to enter the detail screen.
  4. Now you'll see some large green buttons at the bottom "Record Pill Taken Now" and "Record Pill Skipped". Tap "Record Pill Skipped" to do so.
  5. If you'd like to change the time for when you skipped you can do so similarly to how you do that for taken. Just tap the date/time next to "Skipped" and a selector will come up where you can change the date/time.
  6. When you have the date/time you want tap "Done" to set the value and the selector will go away. The new date is now saved also.
  7. If you wish to make a note of why you skipped the dose there is a "Notes" field which you can enter any text you wish. This will be included in the History export (More > Email My History).

While on the detail screen you may have noticed the extra new fields if a pill is taken, we now record a copy of the reminder details at the time a pill is taken, we'll post more on that soon.

Note: You cannot mark an As Needed/PRN dose as skipped, only taken or remove the record.

How to select the home (default) screen?

After much feedback from users wanting either the medications list or reminders list to be the default screen we added a feature to allow you to select which one you want. This is in the app from version 2.1 onwards.

  1. Tap More…
  2. Tap Toggle My Home to switch which screen is the default.

Note: Unfortunately we can only offer this for iOS 5.0 and above so apologies to those users on iOS 4.3.

How to check sounds and volume?

  1. Tap More...
  2. Tap "Reminder Sounds" or "Sound & Volume Settings" depending on which version you are on.
  3. There is a volume indicator at the top of the screen which shows volume but you can still use the buttons on the side of your device. Make sure to check the mute switch if your device has one.
  4. To test your sounds tap a sound. This is also how you select a sound for your reminder alerts.

How do I enter medications for multiple people?

You can have multiple people entered in the app and assign medications to each one. Below I describe how to enter 4 medications for 2 different people, 2 medications to "Me" and 2 medications to "Mum".

First medication assigned to "Me"
  1. Tap Medications
  2. Tap the add button (plus in the top right)
  3. Enter the medication details including reminder, refill reminder as required.
  4. You will have seen the "Person" field while entering. This is where you can assign a medication to a particular person. Tap it to bring up the list of people.
  5. Tap the "Add Person" row to add a new person. Let's enter their nickname as "Me"
  6. Enter their details, note: nick name is what you will see in most places in the app.
  7. Tap Done to save the person's details.
  8. Tap the person to assign the medication to that person.
  9. Tap Save when you are ready to save the medication details.
  10. Tap "Medication List" to return to medications list. 

You'll notice the list now has a section for the person and one medication in their section. If you had previously entered medications but not assigned them to a person there will also be an "Unassigned" section with those medications listed.

Second medication assigned to "Me"

  1. To add the second medication to "Me" tap the add button again and enter the details for the medication like before.
  2. You notice that the medication is already assigned to "Me" this is because they are the top/default person.
  3. Tap Save when you are ready to save the new medication details.
  4. Tap "Medication List" to return to the medications list.

Now you'll see 2 medications listed in the "Me" section. Third medication assigned to "Mum"

  1. Tap Medications
  2. Tap the add button (plus in the top right)
  3. Enter the medication details including reminder, refill reminder as required.
  4. Tap the "Person" field to bring up the list of people.
  5. Tap the "Add Person" row to add a new person. Let's enter their nickname as "Mum"
  6. Enter their details, note: nick name is what you will see in most places in the app.
  7. Tap Done to save the person's details.
  8. Tap the person to assign the medication to that person.
  9. Tap Save when you are ready to save the medication details.
  10. Tap "Medication List" to return to medications list.

Fourth medication assigned to "Mum"

  1. To add the second medication to "Mum" tap the add button again and enter the details for the medication like before.
  2. Tap the "Person" field to bring up the list of people
  3. Tap "Mum" to assign the medication to "Mum"
  4. Tap Save when you are ready to save the new medication details.
  5. Tap "Medication List" to return to the medications list.

How to edit details for a person

To edit details for a person entry:

  1. Tap medications
  2. Tap a medication
  3. Tap the edit button (top right)
  4. Scroll down to the "Person" field and tap it
  5. This brings up the person list, at the top right of this list is an edit button tap this.
  6. Now tap the person you wish to edit, this brings up a form for that particular person.
  7. Change values as required.
  8. Tap Done to save the person's details.
  9. You're finished.

Note: When you tap edit on the person list it also allows you to re-order the list, the person at the top is the default for any new medications.

How to have different strengths/doses at different times?

This is a common question and isn't immediately obvious. Say you need to take 2 tablets 300mg at 9am and 1 tablet at 200mg at 6pm how can you do that with Pill Reminder?

In short add a medication entry for each dose.

Step by step:
  1. Tap Medications
  2. Tap the add button (+ in the top right)
  3. Enter the medication choosing 300mg for strength
  4. Set the reminder daily at 9am and enter 2 tablets for dose.
  5. Tap the Save button
  6. Tap the add button again (+ in the top right)
  7. Enter the medication choosing 200mg for strength
  8. Set the reminder daily at 6pm and enter 1 tablet for dose.
  9. Tap the Save button

Now in your reminders list you'll see the medication at both 9am and 6pm and with the different details for each time.

How to set a reminder for particular days each week?

If you wish to set a reminder for say each Monday, Wednesday and Friday of each week here's how to do it:

  1. Tap Medications
  2. Tap the medication you wish to set the reminder schedule for
  3. Tap Edit (top right)
  4. Scroll down to the Pill Reminder section
  5. Make sure the reminder status is "on"
  6. Tap the Frequency item
  7. Choose Weekly from the list
  8. When you return to the edit medication screen there is now a "Days of the Week" item below Frequency, tap this.
  9. Choose the days you wish to take that medication e.g. Monday, Wednesday, Friday
  10. Tap "Edit Drug" (top left) when you are done.
  11. Finally tap "Save" to save the changes to your medication.

Be sure to check our the "Every X weeks" frequency type also it works very similarly.

How to get Drug Interactions?

After you've entered your medications into the Pill Reminder by Drugs.com app you can see any drug interactions using our online Drug Interactions Checker the app will automatically enter all drugs it could match to save you time.

Here's how:
  1. Tap "Medications"
  2. Tap any medication
  3. Scroll down to "Drug Interactions" tap this
  4. The online Drug Interactions Checker is loaded with all your medications entered and any interactions details are shown.
  5. You can continue to add more drugs into the interactions checker if you need to.

Note: Only medications listed for the same Person are checked at the time.

How to take a picture of your medication?

The pill reminders app has a handy feature of being able to take a photo to help you identify which medication is which. Common uses of this are a picture of the pill bottle, or individual pill.

As long as your device has a camera you can take a photo using it and assign that photo to you medication by:

  1. Tap Medications (bottom left)
  2. Find the medication and tap it.
  3. Tap "Edit" (top right)
  4. Scroll down until you see the "Picture" section. Tap "Take a picture".
  5. You can now take the picture and then set the frame. Tap the "Use" button when you are happy with the picture.
  6. Finally tap "Save" to save the changes to the medication.

Alternatively (or if your device does not have a camera) you can also choose a photo from your library/photo stream. Look for "Select a picture" instead of "Take a picture".

How to change the time taken of a dose?

If you wish to change the taken time or if you've forgotten to log the dose and want to adjust the time to when you actually took it.

To change the time taken:
  1. Tap reminders
  2. Find the reminder you wish to change the taken time for.
  3. Tap towards the right hand side of it (away from the check box)
  4. On the details screen tap the date in "Taken"
  5. Change the date/time
  6. Tap "Done" to save.