Every October/November before the holidays kick into full force, I do a quick review of my home pharmacy.  Making sure I have all the over the counter remedies that may be needed to get myself, my family, and any visitors I may have thru the cold and flu season. If you have not gone thru your home pharmacy in a while, I encourage you to take a few minutes and do this short easy task.   If you are at home right now reading this blog, why don’t you do it right now?

Gather all the OTC, Prescription & Supplements you have around your home.  If you are not at home, think about doing this quick task tonight or schedule it into your weekend, it won’t take much time and you will be glad you did.

If you don’t have a home pharmacy (AKA: medicine cabinet) and your curious about what it should contain, keep reading this blog or watch this video where I go thru mine in real time. 

We have been told for years not to use our actual bathroom medicine cabinet to house our medicines, I know for a fact, your medications are not going to go rotten in 30 days stored in the bathroom.  If that is where you need to keep them to remember to take them, do what works for you.  You can always store back-stock and infrequently used medications in a cool dry place.  Personally, I store my home pharmacy in an upper kitchen cabinet, just above all the spices.  That way everyone in the house has access to it if they need it but it is still out of reach of any children.  If I am prescribed a medication, that is for short term use, it goes on the counter in my bathroom or on the counter in my kitchen. 

When going thru your home pharmacy your looking for what can stay, what can go and what you might be missing.  If you have expired prescriptions, you can take those to your pharmacy, they will dispose of that medication and even recycle the container. 

Each of our home pharmacies will be unique to us, as we all have different favorite remedies and different heath issues.  You will stock your home pharmacy with items you like to have available to fit your lifestyle and to care for the people who live with you and those who visit you often.  With prescription versions of any of the items listed, use your judgement on where to store those.  You may want to create a mini personal home pharmacy and put that in a more private place where those items are not available to everyone. 

First category – Pain relievers, fever and inflammation reducers.  These would be over the counter items like Ibuprofen, Acetaminophen and Aspirin.  Your personal prescriptions for pain and inflammation are items you may want to keep in your personal mini home pharmacy.  Check the dates on all the items in this category.  If an item has expired, think about why.  Do you just not select this item because something else works better for you?  Did you not finish that prescription?  Were you just fortunate to not have needed to reach for that item due to a long run of excellent health?  Whatever the reason, discard expired product and decide if you should repurchase it for your home pharmacy.  Maybe replace it with the smallest size you can buy, so you have it on hand.  You can always purchase a larger size later if your situation changes. 

Second category – Antihistamines, decongestants, cough, cold & flu, and allergy remedies.  Like the first category, these would be your collection of over the counter items.  If you have personal prescriptions for your sinus and allergies issues, you may want to keep those in your personal mini home pharmacy. 

Third category – Medications for tummy troubles, constipation, or diarrhea.  You could have a prescription for these items or like to have over the counter remedies on hand, just in case.  Check the dates on these items and decide if you need to repurchase.  If you never need these types of items, but you have a lot of visitors to your home, you might want to have the smallest size of these types of remedies on hand for others.  In fact, that is true for all of these categories.

Fourth category – Minor wounds, cuts, and abrasions.  For this I keep an antibiotic ointment on hand and a variety of sizes of adhesive bandages.  You might also keep petroleum jelly, hydrogen peroxide, and alcohol for this kind of cleaning and care.  I keep my antibiotic ointment inside the bandage box under the sink in my bathroom.  I keep a first aid kit with items to handle more serous injuries in a different location, keeping no medications in my first aid kit, so I do not review it annually for expired product.  First Aid Kits; that’s a topic for another day.

Fifth category – Topical creams & ointments.  Things like topical steroid creams, anti-itch creams or anti-fungal creams.  If you like to have these types of items on hand, check the dates, discard expired and replace as desired.

There are so many remedies you could have on hand; in fact, you might have several items still left in your home pharmacy that I have not mentioned.  Have any of those items expired?  If so, do you need to repurchase it?  As I mentioned in the beginning of this blog, I look at my home pharmacy in Oct/Nov so I can think about who might be visiting and what I might want on hand for them as well.  Check the dates on these items and discard those that have expired. Decide if you should repurchase and what size, based on how long you have had them on hand.

Your home pharmacy will be personalized to your needs.  What I have listed are general purpose categories.  The “best practice” would be to look at the expiration date of items you take throughout the year and replace those as needed in real time.  We are all super busy and sometimes we don’t handle a task in real time.  Especially when it comes to medications, because you are probably not feeling well if you are reaching for an item in your home pharmacy.  At that moment, you are not likely to be thinking about organizing.  Looking at your home pharmacy once a year, before cold & flu season may not be “best practice” but it is a “good practice”.

When stocking your home pharmacy keep in mind things like, how far are you from a pharmacy?  That can inform your decisions about what to have and what size to have on hand. 

Think about your regular visitors, what would you like to have on hand for them?  Do you have family member that suffers migraines?  If so, maybe you have an extra strength pain reliever, just for them.  Do you have family with allergies?  Maybe you have an antihistamine in your home pharmacy just for them. 

I hope you took the time to review and restock your home pharmacy and found this information useful.  Or at a minimum it served as a reminder to put this task on your to do list.  Let me know in the comments.  Did you do this?  How many expired items did you find?  What are your top three must have items in your home pharmacy?

I hope you all have a safe and healthy Thanksgiving.