What medicine should be kept at home? Families with elderly and children should keep it!

Many families are accustomed to preparing for a rainy day and have their own first aid kit.

Some people say: Online shopping is so developed now, wouldn’t it be great to buy medicine online?

But you have to know that in an emergency, a small first aid kit can come in very handy!

For example, if a child at home has skin broken after a bump, it needs to be disinfected and the bleeding stopped as soon as possible; if a patient with coronary heart disease at home has an angina attack, he needs to take sublingual nitroglycerin tablets or quick-acting heart-saving pills and other emergency medicines... At this time, online shopping is definitely too late, but the importance of a small first aid kit becomes apparent.

How can you make your home medicine cabinet practical, comprehensive, and waste-free? Let’s practice with the pharmacist today!

Cold and fever medicine

Families with children can prepare some cold and fever medicines, such as:

Analgesics and fever reducers: ibuprofen, acetaminophen;

Antiviral: Ganmaoling Granules, Isatis Root Granules, etc.

You can also prepare compound cold medicines: such as acetaminophen, pseudoephedrine, and meprobamate tablets.

However, it is not recommended to have antibiotics at home[1].

According to statistics, 56.7% of residents use antibiotics blindly. Many people take antibiotics when they have a cold or fever without the guidance of professional pharmacists or doctors[2].

The consequences of doing so are that, first, it may not be effective, and second, it may lead to drug resistance. In addition, the ingredients of compound cold medicines can have a cumulative effect on their efficacy.

Therefore, before taking the medicine, you must carefully check the drug ingredients in the instructions of the compound preparation. Do not use two drugs with the same ingredients together to avoid excessive dosage and damage to liver and kidney function.

Gastrointestinal medication

If you don't pay attention to hygiene when eating, diarrhea is likely to occur.

If the situation is not serious, you can prepare oral rehydration salts, montmorillonite powder, berberine, etc. at home to prevent dehydration, stop diarrhea and reduce inflammation.

(Image source: giphy)

If symptoms are severe, seek medical attention immediately!

In addition, if you have an irregular diet, you can also prepare some digestive aids, such as compound digestive enzyme capsules, stomach-strengthening and digestion-promoting tablets, lactase tablets, etc.

Some people with constipation may also need to prepare some lactulose oral solution, enema, etc., but please note that enema should not be used for a long time.

Topical medications

Bumps and sprains are unavoidable in life, so it is also necessary to prepare some topical medications.

For example, disinfectants such as iodine and alcohol can be used to disinfect external injuries, Yunnan Baiyao can be used to stop bleeding, and mupirocin ointment or erythromycin ointment can be used for bacterial skin infections. You can also prepare some Fengyoujing and Qingliangyou to prevent mosquito bites. Children are prone to prickly heat in summer, so you can also prepare calamine lotion to remove prickly heat and relieve itching.

Cardiovascular emergency medicine

For families with elderly people, it is recommended to prepare some emergency medicines such as nitroglycerin, quick-acting heart-saving pills, and aspirin to prepare for emergency treatment and relieve symptoms in case of emergency cardiovascular and cerebrovascular accidents. But please note that these medicines cannot be taken casually, especially nitroglycerin, which can only be used when angina pectoris occurs, but it must be taken sublingually! Please note that it is taken sublingually!

Chronic disease drugs

If there are family members suffering from chronic diseases, it is necessary to always have medicines for treating chronic diseases and emergency preventive medicines for acute symptoms, such as antihypertensive drugs for patients with hypertension, hypoglycemic drugs for patients with diabetes, emergency medicines for patients with coronary heart disease, etc.

For some patients during long-term treatment, the medication regimen needs to be adjusted frequently according to the progression of the disease.

During the use of certain special drugs, patients are required to go to medical institutions regularly to monitor the drug's in vivo therapeutic indicators, such as the INR value of the anticoagulant warfarin and the blood concentration monitoring of immunosuppressants.

Simple medical supplies

In addition to medicines, you can also equip yourself with some medical equipment and supplies, such as thermometers, gauze, Band-Aids, medical tape, etc.

If there are elderly people or patients with chronic diseases in the family, blood pressure monitors, blood glucose meters, etc. should be provided according to the health conditions and illnesses of family members.

You can go to the supermarket to choose storage boxes that are odorless, of reliable quality, and opaque. It is not recommended to use cardboard boxes to avoid moisture absorption and causing the medicine to become damp.

Families with the means can also go to the pharmacy to buy a special family medicine box. Special medicine boxes are usually made of environmentally friendly materials and have multiple layers, each layer has different sizes of compartments.

Not only can we make full use of the internal space of the medicine box, but we can also make a simple classification of the medicines by grids and layers.

Also be sure to check the expiration date of the medicine.

It is not recommended to continue using expired medicines.

Some people may think it is a pity to throw away expired medicines. But in fact, the therapeutic effect of expired medicines may have been reduced, and they may also produce substances that are harmful to the body.

In 2001, there was a case of liver and kidney damage and toxic myocarditis caused by taking expired tetracycline[3].

Throwing away expired medicines directly may pollute the environment and risk being illegally recycled by unscrupulous vendors.

It is recommended that expired medicines be sent to designated medicine recycling points for recycling, and the recycled medicines will be centrally disposed of in a harmless manner.

If there is no centralized recycling system in the city, medicines can be treated as hazardous household waste and placed in red hazardous waste bins.

The storage place should be dry and away from light to prevent children from accidentally taking it.

Classification storage

1. Medicines and medical supplies should be kept separate.

2. Simply classify medicines and store them in a certain order, such as separating adult medicines from children's medicines, oral medicines from external medicines, emergency medicines from regular medicines, etc., to avoid taking or using the wrong medicines in an emergency or cross-contamination between medicines.

3. It is best to store the medicine in the original packaging box and keep the medicine instructions for easy reference at any time.

4. Some scattered tablets, capsules, etc. prescribed by the hospital should be put into white paper bags or brown glass bottles respectively, the bags or bottle mouths should be sealed, and bottle labels should be affixed. The drug name, specifications, usage, dosage and expiration date should be indicated on the labels.

Replace medicines regularly to avoid expiration

You can easily identify by looking, smelling and touching:

1. Check the validity period and expiration date of the inner and outer packaging of drugs and medical supplies to confirm whether they are within the validity period;

2. If the medicine changes color, becomes moldy, spots, separates water and oil, delaminates, becomes turbid, smells sour or smells bad, feels sticky, rough, softened, or sticky, it should be treated as deteriorated and cannot be used;

3. If the drug label falls off, or the product specifications, usage or expiration date are unclear, it should be discarded.

Please note that some medicines must be used immediately once the outer packaging is opened, such as eye drops, ear drops, oral liquids, etc. Usually, these medicines cannot be used again 7 days to one month after opening. Read the instructions carefully before opening.

Read the drug instructions carefully before taking the medicine

Finally, I would like to share with you a principle: the quality of medicines stored in the home medicine cabinet is not the quantity, so don't pursue comprehensiveness. In addition, you should read the instructions before using the medicine, and use the medicine under the guidance of a doctor or pharmacist when necessary. If you have an emergency or serious illness, you should seek medical attention immediately to avoid delaying the condition.

Finally, I hope there is a medicine that those who like and forward this post will not need to use it.

(Image source: Internet)

Source: Tencent Medical Dictionary