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.

I would like practical detail rather than encouragement. What people actually do, in what order, and what goes wrong when they get it wrong.

I nearly did not ask because it sounds trivial written down, and it has been the most persistent difficulty of the last six months.

If anybody has an arrangement that works and is willing to write it out, I would be very grateful.

SerenLlandudno, UK

Something practical: I got my collections aligned with the ones I already do for somebody else, and it saved me a journey a month.

8me too 7

LinnetKendal, UK

Eating properly is the thing that goes first when I am stretched, and it goes without me noticing, and this circle is where I noticed.

WrenFacilitatorLeeds, UK

Facilitator note: if any of this has landed close to home while reading, our support resources page lists the kinds of service worth finding.

BrennaEnniskillen, NI

What helped was one hour a fortnight that is genuinely mine, arranged formally, so that it cannot quietly disappear.

KeeleyBlackpool, UK

Coming back to what Wren wrote further up, because it is the bit I keep thinking about.

I would say ask about a carer's assessment if you have not. Mine took an hour and unlocked things I did not know existed.

LandoLeeds, UK

The guilt about spending money or time on myself was the hardest part, and it is still the hardest part two years in.

11me too 1

ZoraSarajevo, BA

Here, reading, and glad you posted.

PamSouthport, UK

Lando, thank you for that. It gives me somewhere to start from.

My routine is completely non-negotiable because it has to be. Everything else in my week bends and this does not.

IzoldaVilnius, LT

Picking up Zora’s point rather than starting a new one.

My experience is that this is entirely doable while caring, and that it needs more planning than the guides assume.

GigiNaples, IT

#10

I have stopped apologising for the length of time it takes me to reply to things. Everybody here understands.

IdrisCardiff, UK

#11

Nobody has asked me how I am in about four years and this circle asks every week, which is most of why I am still here.

4me too 1

PipBristol, UK

#12

Coming back to say we found a rhythm, that his care has been stable for a year, and that I have kept going, which two years ago I would not have predicted.

WrenFacilitatorLeeds, UK

#13

Noticing that the thread has answered the question and then kept going, which is fine, and I want the answer not to get buried.

ÖzlemIzmir, TR

#14

Gently disagreeing with Idris, or rather adding the other half of it.

My own appointments come last, always, and this was the first thing in a decade I have organised for myself.