Medicines help treat us when we are sick. But the same medicines can be deadly if they aren't stored properly. Indeed, many deaths and injuries are the result of accidental overdoses that could have been prevented if the proper precautions were taken. To stop this tragedy from affecting your family, here are a few things to remember:
Keep medicines safely out of the reach of children. Its an old warning but one that isn't followed at times. Ensure that your medicine cabinet cant be reached by kids but is still accessible to adults. Make it safer by installing a lock on it and see to it that the lock is always working. This will also prevent curious teenagers from experimenting with prescription medicines.
Most medicine cabinets are found in the bathroom but this is a bad place to store medications. Bathroom cabinets are often warm and humid. This kind of environment causes drugs to break down more easily.
This applies mostly to tablets and capsules. By exposing them to heat and moisture, these drugs can lose their potency even before they expire. For instance, a warm environment causes aspirin to break down into acetic acid (vinegar) and salicylic acid which can irritate your stomach. These problems can be avoided by storing medicines in a cool, dry place.
Put medicines away from sunlight and tightly close medicine bottles to make them free of contaminants and moisture. Never freeze liquid medications since this can make the drugs ineffective. When traveling, keep medicines with you. In order to protect them from unpredictable extreme temperatures, do not store them in checked luggage. Additionally, if your checked luggage is lost, your medications will be gone; thus, negatively effecting your health.
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