As a responsible parent, you must familiarize yourself with DIY medicine storage ideas to keep your children safe. Studies reveal that around 50,000 kids annually end up in emergency rooms for medicine abuse. Unfortunately, some accidents can be fatal when not addressed promptly.
Kids can often get into medicine, supplements, vitamins, and health products when not stored properly. As a result, they can find the drugs in places you may not suspect, calling for caution. The good news is that safe storage tips can help keep medicines out of your kids’ reach.
This guide will show you how to store medicines to avoid accidental poisoning safely. In addition, you can use our tips to organize your medicine cabinet for safety purposes.
DIY Medicine Storage Ideas to Implement at Home
You’ve probably stocked up some medicines in your house to prepare for medical emergencies and stay well. However, how you organize your medicine cabinet can influence storage. You must practice safe medicine storage at home to protect children against medicine poisoning.
Here are some home medicine storage ideas to help keep your household medicines.
1. Dispose of Expired Medicines
Taking expired medicine is potentially hazardous as it can make you feel sick. So, you need to take a medicine inventory of your house and check the medicines’ expiry dates. Then, throw away all expired medical prescriptions. However, you should do it safely to avoid any accidents.
The good news is that there are many ways to dispose of expired medicines, including:
Participating in drug give-back programs
Using a drug mail-back or medicine disposal kiosk
Taking the medication to the nearest drugstore for proper disposal
Asking your pharmacy or local police station if they collect expired medicines
If the three options are unavailable, you can dispose of the expired medicines yourself. All you need to do is fill a container with water and add whole medicine pills. Add inedible things like cat litter and shut the container with its lid. Seal the container in a bag and put it in the garbage.
2. Store Medicines in High Cabinets Where Children Cannot Reach
Children are naturally curious and can put various things in their mouths, including poorly stored medicines. So, you must keep drugs away from your children’s reach. The safest way is to lock up the medication in places they can’t access, like high cabinets.
If you got no high cabinets in your home, consider storing the drugs in lockable boxes, drawers, or even a safe, provided your children cannot see or find them. Although different families prefer different storage places, you can walk around your home and pick the safest spot for medicines.
3. Organize Your Medicines Properly
If you or one of your family members take medicines more frequently, you must organize the drugs in your cabinet based on a schedule. For example, you can group the drugs into morning, afternoon, and evening prescriptions. So, place the medicines on various shelves in the cabinet.
Another medicine organization strategy is using a sticky note or label maker to label every group with a specific required dosage time. The labels will guide your eyes to the appropriate group when taking your daily medications. However, you won’t see the tags if the cabinet is closed.
You can also organize medicines alphabetically for quick access and identification, especially if you have several drugs in your medicine cabinet. If you are unsure of how to go about it, check the first letter of every prescription and use it to place the medicine in a specific location.
4. Lock Your Medicine Storage Spaces
It’s essential to store medications away from young children; the best way to do that is by using locks. Compare various locking methods to find what will work best with your medicine storage space. You will find it easy to keep everyone safer and prevent medicines poisoning.
Whether you store medicines in a cabinet, safe box, or cupboard, you must keep the space locked 24/7. You never know when a child will sneak and access the drugs. If your locks break, consider adding new ones. Then, you only need to open the locks when taking medicine.
5. Lock the Safety Cap of Each Medicine Bottle During Storage
Most medicine bottles come with safety caps to help store the medicines safely and away from kids’ reach. So, after every use, close the medicine bottle tightly using its safety cap and put it away. The good news is that child-resistant caps are available but not childproof.
Although the safety caps are vital in promoting medicinal safety, some children can still open the safe. So, you must lock the medicine bottles properly by twisting the locking cap until you hear a clicking sound or can’t twist it anymore. After that, please place them in the high cabinets.
6. Store Medicines in Original Containers
Keeping medicine in its original bottle or child-resistant package can help mitigate accidental medicine poisoning risks. Otherwise, you or one of your family members might mistake the stored drug for something else and take it. Unfortunately, that can be hazardous.
Final Words
So far, you understand how to store medicines safely in your home. Choose the best storage solution and implement the tips in this guide to prevent accidental drug poisoning. If you don’t have enough storage at home, create space by moving some items from your home to Vaultra Storage’s facility. The good news is that our storage solutions are reliable and affordable.
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