As parents or guardians of children who make up the paediatric population, it’s a good thing to be aware that the way we store our medicine influences their safe usage as well as their effectiveness when our kids take them. This is because medicine is meant to be stored in a very specific type of environment so that the compounds used to make it are not damaged in any way. The place we store our medicines also limits their abuse in that they will not be easily accessible to someone who they are not meant for.
Here are 5 tips for better storage of your medicine.
1 Medicine should be kept out of the reach of children
If you intend to store medicine in your home for one reason or the other, it will be important to have them stored in child resistant containers. These you can get from your local pharmacist. It’s important to store them securely from your children because children will always be children and are therefore likely to play around and even consume this medication.
2 Avoid storing prescription meds in your medicine cabinet
The thing most people don’t realize about medicine is that they have to be stored under optimum conditions in order for them to remain viable. Keeping this in mind, most people will have their medicine cabinets in their bathrooms which tend to be warm and humid thereby quickening the process of the breakdown of certain tablets and capsules. This weakens the potency of this medication.
3 Store medicine in a cool and dry place
As we discussed in point two above, warm and humid temperature is not the best environment for storing medicine. It’s recommended to ensure your medicine is stored in a cool and dry place. In some instances, you will get specific instructions on where to store your medicine such as in the refrigerator. It’s therefore important for you to double check with your pharmacist the moment you are issued with the drugs.
4 Don’t remove medication from their original storage containers
When you are issued with medication, their containers usually contain various instructions on storage, usage and sometimes information about your doctor. This allows you to stay on track with your meds and is an important component of their storage. Therefore, don’t ever think about removing your medication from their original storage containers.
5 Avoid leaving medication in the car
As we have established, heat and moister tend to quickly interfere with the viability of medication therefore reducing its effectiveness. Cars tend to get really hot and this heat will degrade the medicine thus lowering its quality. You should therefore avoid at all cost leaving medication in the car.
Just for emphasis, adherence to prescription medication especially when it comes to the paediatric population is meant to ultimately reduce the number of times they have to visit the paediatric radiology wingin health facilities as this helps reduce their risk of exposure to ionizing radiation therefore reducing their chances of getting cancer in the long run.