Cleaning out the old drug cabinet
I was cleaning out the drug cabinet the other day and just noticed how many of the flu and cold medications had expired zonks ago. It was really scary to because I don’t make a habit of checking for expiry before popping a tylenol or some cough syrup. I’m trying to figure out how best to ensure all the medications in the house are still before their “best before” date but other than zealously checking every other week, it’s going to be hard. There are a few obvious things I can think of anyway.
- Put all the medications in a single place - I noticed that we had about three different locations in which we kept all sorts of pills and lotions, mostly in bathroom cabinets all over the house. This may be convenient when you have a splitting headache not to have to schlep across the house for a painkiller but it doesn’t make it easy to keep track of what’s expiring and what isn’t.
- Buy smaller quantities - there’s probably no need to have that costco-size box of Theraflu. Half of it’s probably just going to waste
- Do periodic checks - I’m trying to set up a schedule of checking all expiry dates, probably about once a quarter. I’ve got a bunch of really boring household stuff that I try to schedule like that (filing documents, etc) so I’ll probably just add this to the list. These are all the things I hate to do but know will get me in trouble if I don’t so I end up dedicating one saturday a quarter to getting them done.
- Check every time you use some medication - I’m also going to make a habit of doing a quick check every time I pick up a bottle.
Well let’s see how long this lasts. Hopefully, it’ll put my mind at ease that no one in the family is going to poison themselves accidentally one of these days.
Let me know if you have any ways of keeping your medicine cabinets safe
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