Published May 21, 2019 (current as of December 31, 2024)
Pharmacists from the Maryland Poison Center wrote about 88 accidental poisonings caused by “pill dumping.”1 “Pill dumping” is when consumers use a spare medicine vial to hold all their daily medicines, or to hold all their morning or evening medicines together. These spare medicine vials are the empty, amber plastic vials (Figure 1) that prescription medicines come in from the pharmacy. With “pill dumping,” consumers remove a single dose of each daily or morning/evening medicine from the original pharmacy vial, and then put the medicines in a spare empty vial so they can take all of their medicines at once. Unfortunately, some consumers have accidentally picked up one of their regular medicine vials and taken all the tablets in it, thinking it was the spare vial into which they had put just one dose of each of their daily or morning/evening medicines.
Almost all of the 88 consumers who accidentally took the wrong medicine were older adults between the ages of 54 and 70. The most common medicines taken by accident were for the heart, blood pressure, depression, and pain. Consumers typically took about 15 of these tablets at once. This may not have seemed unusual for an older adult who takes many medicines daily.
More than half of the consumers wound up in the emergency department. More than a third were admitted to the hospital, some to a critical care unit. One of the 88 consumers died after accidentally taking 30 tablets of colchicine from a medicine bottle that he thought contained his morning medicines. Colchicine is a medicine used to treat flare-ups of gout and other conditions. It is very harsh on the body when taken in high doses, and there are many reports of death from accidental overdoses of colchicine.
Another problem with “pill dumping” is that the spare vial that contains many different medicines may be labeled with the name of the medicine it previously held. If this vial accidently gets put back with the regular medicine vials, it could be mistaken as the medicine on the label.
Here’s what you can do: “Pill dumping” can have deadly consequences, so never use old medicine vials as a container for your daily or morning/evening medicines. Instead, if you want to prepare your daily medicines ahead of time, use a pillbox or a weekly medicine pill holder (Figure 2) intended for this purpose. This way, the medicines will be stored in a container that looks different than a regular medicine vial. If a pillbox or weekly medicine pill holder is used, be sure the cover on each box holding the medicines is secure and will not open accidentally. Spills can happen when the pillbox or pill holder is carried in a purse, backpack, or suitcase. You can secure the lid in place by using a rubber band, if necessary. If you or a loved one are involved in any error with medicines, call the Poison Help line at 1-800-222-1222 for advice.
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