Medicine cabinet at home: Do's and don'ts to storing medicines
Most of us have a space in our home that we use as a pharmacy. But do we know the basic rules for safe storage of medicines?
Some essential painkillers, throat lozenges, anti-inflammatory pills, medicines we may take on a chronic basis, hydrating eye drops, pills for diarrhoea or nausea, medicines for a stomach ache, for coughing… Every home has a more or less organised medicine cabinet. Unfortunately, however, most of us either make a mistake in the way we store medicines or keep for a long time medicines that should not be used again after the treatment period is over.
The following tips for proper preservation and storage of medicines at home may be helpful.
Do’ s
- Store medicines in a cool and dry place. The bathroom where many of us store them is not appropriate due to humidity and high temperatures that develop when we showering.
- We need to know which medications must be stored at room temperature and which ones need refrigeration.
- If we take daily medications we organize them in the special boxes found at the pharmacy to make sure we don’t miss a dose.
- We keep the medicines in their containers and do not throw away the instruction leaflet.
- We carefully close liquid medicines in bottles or pill bottles so that the contents do not accidentally spill.
- We take any expired medicines to the pharmacy for proper disposal.
- We keep medicines out of the reach of children.
Don’ ts
- Medicines should not be exposed to direct sunlight and extreme temperatures.
- We do not use expired medicines.
- We do not keep any leftover antibiotics in the medicine cabinet for future use. If the package had more pills than were needed to complete the treatment, we return them to our pharmacist for safe disposal.
- We don’t take pills with a noticeable change in texture or color, even if they are not past their expiration date.
- We do not flush medicines down the toilet.
- We don’t leave medicines exposed, especially if there are children or pets in the house.
And one last tip: If a medication from our regular regimen has been exposed to moisture or high temperatures, consult our pharmacist if it is safe to take it.