From curing occasional headaches to treating chronic conditions, medications contain powerful chemicals that can be dangerous in the wrong hands. To avoid emergency trips to medical clinics, parents are advised to keep pharmaceuticals out of their children’s reach. Storing pills, drops, liquids, and injections in the wrong places can also affect the potency of your prescriptions or cause adverse reactions. Here’s some advice on how to avoid these potential issues in your home. 

How to Store Medicine Safely

1. Use a Box With a Lock

Although it’s convenient, don’t store medication in the bathroom medicine cabinet. You could forget about drugs shoved behind toiletries and other items. By the time you remember, they might have expired.

Taking old medication can cause dangerous side effects. To ensure that medication is always on the top of your mind and children’s access is restricted, put it in a dedicated box or canvas bag that comes with a built-in lock and key.  

2. Find a Cool, Dry Place

After you put medication in a secure box or canvas case, don’t put it in the bathroom or near the stove in the kitchen. Although specific instructions vary, most pharmaceuticals don’t fare well in warm or humid conditions. Heat and moisture can breakdown the chemical properties and the strength of the medications.

Find a cool, dry place to store pharmaceuticals, such as a high shelf in your bedroom closet or the locked drawer of a desk in the home office. Remove the cotton balls inside bottles, as the fibers attract moisture as well.  

3. Put Drugs Away Between Dosages

If someone in the house is fighting a cold or healing from surgery, you might be tempted to keep medications on a bedside table or counter between dosages. Although it adds an extra step, put medication back in its designated area after each use. This will prevent a trip to the medical clinic by stopping kids and animals from consuming the drugs or the sick individual from overmedicating.

For advice on the proper storage procedures for a specific medication, contact the primary care doctors at Patient Choice Medical Care in Hamden, CT. Serving families throughout New Haven County, the professionals at this medical clinic provide flu vaccines, physicals, and diabetes care to keep patients healthy. Visit the medical clinic online for a look at available services or call (203) 535-0262 to arrange an appointment and learn about their upcoming allergy-testing program.