Drugmakers take great care to make medicine with a goal of making you feel better. Now, here’s the request of people like Brian Laird, PharmD, a pharmacy manager with OSF HealthCare: properly store your pills, patches and vials so they work the way they should.
Laird says if medication is not stored properly, its potency will be impacted. First Aid Dressing
“Potency basically means how strong the medication is,” Laird explains. “When [the medication] is manufactured, they test it to make sure it is what it says on the bottle. Just like a household cleaner or food. If you say it’s 5% something, then it gets diluted, it’s no longer 5%. If you water down a cleaner, it’s not going to clean as well. If you water down a medication, same thing.”
Here’s a checklist of dos, don’ts and best practices:
“You may have a small bathroom, especially one that gets super steamy when you take a shower or bath. If there’s an additional place where you can store medication, it might be preferable to one that’s hot and humid,” Laird says.
“[Humidity] can actually get into some of those pills and start to break them down,” Laird adds. “Think about when we swallow something. It goes into your stomach. It’s liquid in there. That’s what helps to start the process of being absorbed into the body. If you add moisture or liquid to [the pill], it’s going to start that [breakdown] too early. It loses that potency.”
“[Telling yourself:] remember to take the blue one every day,” for example, Laird says. “That’s not a good idea.”
“Sometimes, people will lose pills in the cotton ball. Before you throw it away, make sure nothing is accidentally trapped inside it,” Laird suggests.
“They will be the best ones to guide you through that process,” Laird says. “It might be fine. You might need a new prescription. Either way, they’re going to be the experts.”
“Medication doesn’t work if you don’t take it,” Laird says matter-of-factly. “So, if you forget [to take it] because it’s out of your routine, it’s not going to be effective. It’s better to have it in a place that’s less than ideal, but you take it than the ideal storage location, but you never remember to take it.”
Pill boxes labeled by day are a good example of proper storage, Laird says. Removing medicine from its original packaging for a week won’t significantly impact their potency, he says. Or keep the medicine in its original packaging. For example, Laird says some pill bottles are tinted orange for a reason. It keeps light from damaging the pills. Try taking either route while having a designated medicine drawer in your kitchen.
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Cotton Wool Medical Use In the spirit of Christ and the example of Francis of Assisi, the Mission of OSF HealthCare is to serve persons with the greatest care and love in a community that celebrates the Gift of Life.