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Disposing of and organizing your medications
Have you started your spring cleaning? This might entail a deep clean or going through your closet to remove things that don’t fit. Don’t forget your medicine cabinet as an area that you should clean out.
Where to start
Professional organizers will tell you to empty any space you intend to declutter or reorganize. You can wipe down the cabinet and start fresh. As you take medications out of their space (or spaces if you're trying to combine different drawers and cabinets), start with checking the date.
For prescription or over the counter medications that are expired, you’ll want to get rid of those. You want to dispose of medications as they might not work effectively after a certain date. The FDA first recommends participating in a drug take back program. If that isn’t available, you’ll want to follow their advice on how to dispose of the medications.
Combine packages
For items like bandages, you’ll want to combine the products into a single package. This will reduce space and also help you find what you need.
For medications on the other hand, you may not want to combine the bottles. These bottles might contain different strengths of the medication or different expiration dates. You’ll want to keep those in their original container with a proper label.
Put like with like
As you are sorting through your medications, put similar products together. Over-the-counter pain medications should all be put in a group. If you can fit these into a bin together, sort by am/pm and, just like with food, be sure the product that is expiring the soonest is at the top or front so that you use it first. When this first bottle expires, you can remove it from its home, dispose of the pills, and move on to the next bottle.
Easy access
Be sure to place your medication and medical products in an easy to access space. You want to be able to access what you need on a moment’s notice. That said, it is also strongly advised to keep medication out of reach of small children and pets so that another emergency isn’t created.
If you are one of those people who love organization systems, check out these ideas for medication storage and organization. You may be able to reuse bins or containers that you already have in your house. Finding an organization system that works for you will help you to put things back in the right place and stay organized.
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