Management of Medicines @ Home

Hi all,

Before I start up, I would like to share a thought and an experience- I recently got a chance to visit a school for blinds and when I stepped out the premises, I felt, we generally tend to count in the things- to the God we had deserved but did not get; however, we never count the things which we never asked, still God has blessed us with!!!

Now, lets hop on to our core subject- home organising! Today I am going to talk about a thing that is present almost in every home with an equal importance of as salt in the kitchen. Its Medicines. The cupboard/shelf/drawer where we keep our medicines needs an equivalent attention of organising as any other place in our home. Medicines are inevitable, inescapable to some extent especially in a family where aged members, toddlers or babies are present.

I experienced that I was not able to fetch time every month or now and then, to relook into my medicine cupboard. It was least in my concentration focus. But what came up was rushing in the need of emergency to the same cupboard and then, rotating and flipping the sides of bottles and medicine strips to check for their expiry. 

So, the question in the mind was how to arrange it? The foremost step I took was, bought a 3-tier organiser. They are easily available in the market at very economical price.

And, the arrangement I followed in it was-

1-tier - has all the medicines strips.

2-tier- has thermometer, respules (if any), bandages etc

3-tier has some ointments . 

Thats sorted. Now come bottles. Lets look into it. First, arrange them in the height-order.  The idea behind organising this is that the day you sort this cupboard, next 3 months you should make use of this sorting! How?

Pick a permanent marker, the bottles that are going to expire in next three months, on the top (round lid flat top) of that bottle, mark a cross with the marker. Marking with cross represents the medicine is going to get expired. Now, in the upper part of the cross, or any 'v' part of the cross, write the month number in which it is going to get expired, as shown below. For example - You are sorting in March, bottle A getting expired in April, so cross should have 4 in it, in case of May, cross should have 5 in it. 

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The first picture of the bottle is showing the expiry date of the medicine i.e April 2017, and, the second picture shows that the cap of the bottle has been crossed with the month April (4th in the year).

The benefit of writing on the top flat part of the cap of bottle is that it becomes prominently visible and catches attention while picking up for the use and gives us a check on its expiry fast.

Medicine strips when we use them, we generally tear without caring to keep the expiry print on it, so, better way is to mark it with expiry date under its name on front or back side itself. 

This picture shows that the medicine strip was torn during the usage but has been inked with marker at several places reflecting expiry as on 10/18 i.e October-2018.

Names on the strips are written at multiple places for its safe use. You can cross the ones with near expiry by writing again the month number in that cross as shown below in the pic.

I would also like to mention one thing here that there are some medicine bottles that have powder in it (like kid’s probiotics) and needs to add cold boiled water and make it ready. They have short span of life in days time. So, to avoid any confusion, its always better to mark it on flat top of bottle cap its expiry date or the date you made it ready to use (any one as per your convenience). 

This saves a lot of time and energy in hush-bush scenarios. Neat look is the output too. Organising is a vicious circle, having small steps as its segments like scrutinising, shunting, placing and rearranging etc. However, I feel its like learning a bicycle, once learnt making balance, you will never forget it, and, also, it will help you in driving and riding other vehicles too!!

I try to keep minimum medicines, however, medicines for fever, a probiotic, some bandages, betadine solution for small wounds, mild cough etc are the ones which are all-time present and needs time to time fresh replacements also.

You can try this method and write me the feedback and suggestions.

Another bye from my side..soon will come back with my next article. Your responses  and questions are most welcomed.

Upasana