What’s in Your Cabinet?

It’s dark in there, and a bit dusty. You don’t consider yourself to be a sickly person, so you really don’t go in there very often. Here’s a bottle of erythromycin from 1992. Are you ready to let it go? Let it go. Is this an unmarked bottle of tablets? No way is that safe. Get rid of it. What’s this, a zipper bag with pink capsules in it? Oh yeah, from your trip out of town last summer. Dump it. I can understand why you kept that leftover Vicodin. But Uncle Albert’s Vicodin? And Aunt Lucille’s Percocet? Is that a half bottle of antibiotics there? Leftover heartworm pills? Okay, we have to talk.

It probably goes without saying that expired medicines ought to be thrown away. The main issue is their loss of efficacy, but some medicines can actually harbor bacteria and thereby make your condition worse if you try to use them later on.

Heartworm pills should be given 12 months out of the year. Program your phone or use a reminder service to make this happen. 

Antibiotics should always be given until the very end of the recommended interval without skipping doses. When we use them improperly, we are teaching the germs in our immediate vicinity to be resilient to their effects. Instead of dropping a bomb on those guys, we are sitting down with them to lay out plans for a bunker. Your doctor or your vet chose the treatment interval based on global attempts to forestall antibiotic resistance. The general expectation is that you or your pet will already feel better near the beginning of the prescription. You should still keep using it until it’s gone. Liquid antibiotics have an extremely short shelf life. If there is some left after the required number of treatment days, it’s useless for any future occasion. Pitch it.

Bottles of medicine must be labeled with the name and strength of the medicine, the instructions, and the quantity, among other things. That’s the law, because it is a safety issue. If someone (quadruped or other) gets into a prescription and eats it all, that information will be used to calculate how many pills were ingested and the likelihood of harm from this indiscretion. Medicines really shouldn’t be taken out of their original packaging, although it is admittedly sometimes more convenient to do so.

Now, about those painkillers. We have a natural urge to hoard them, because we remember the pain. If that ever happens again, we want to be ready for it. It seems like tempting fate to throw out painkillers, so they multiply quietly there in the dark. Recall that the reason these compounds are under scrutiny by a formidable federal agency is that they are lethal to children, tempting to teenagers, and coveted by criminals. It’s really not the type of thing you should be stockpiling.

How’s your discard pile looking? And your cabinet? Nice work. Now for the attic.

Dr M.S. Regan