Monday, August 14, 2017

I Had to Call Poison Control...Twice

TL;DR: I invented something cool and you can preorder one here.

I was shopping for rugs at Big Lots when I looked down at my 3 year old son in the shopping cart. He had opened my purse and was happily munching on some Aleve liquid capsules...pills my grandma had handed me in a baggie on my way to the airport a few weeks prior. "These aren't safe," I thought at the time. "I'll toss them when I get to the airport so I don't hurt her feelings." Needless to say, I forgot to do that.

Another fine mommy moment - overloading the stroller till it tipped over in the airport bathroom.
My hands trembled as I Googled the number for poison control. I held the phone to my ear with my shoulder while I frantically wiped the liquid medication from Felix's lips and chin.

Thankfully, poison control said there was no need to worry and no need to take action. The amount he'd ingested wouldn't harm a kid his size. Phew.

So you can imagine how stupid I felt when a year later, the same kid got into an old purse of mine and ate a caffeine pill (meant to reduce water retention) at 9:00 one night. He had popped it right through its blister pack. Once again I called poison control and got lucky - no harm done. He went absolutely bonkers for an hour and then crashed and slept all night.

Loose pills in a cute tin - might as well be candy. Thanks to the brave mom who admitted she used to travel this way!
At that point, I thought it was time to get serious about finding a new type of child-resistant pill bottle that could fit into my purse. It was something I was sure existed if I just Googled hard enough! But no, there was nothing. There are pill bottles with timers, combination locks, water compartments and days-of-the-week stamps. But nothing that simply held multiple different medications in one child-resistant container.

So I decided to design one myself. With sample bottles, cardboard, and the help of an engineer and his drafting software and 3D printer, we finally arrived at Take Six, an amazing new travel pill bottle that does everything I need it to do! Patent protection was filed in June 2017.

Take Six child-resistant travel pill bottle
Take Six Child-Resistant Pill Bottle with Multiple Compartments

And here is where you can help, dear friends. I need to raise at least $15,000 on Kickstarter by September 9th in order to produce these bottles. The awesome part is that if you pledge and we reach our goal, your reward is a Take Six bottle. And if we don't reach our goal, your card is never charged.

Please take a look, leave your comments (and a pledge if you could use a Take Six pill bottle), and share, share, share with your networks. The product has been VERY well received! A high number of people who find it pledge, so now it's just a matter of getting it in front of enough people to make it happen. Thanks for reading!