Happy New Year everyone! It’s the dawn of a new year and may it bring us health and happiness. It is also time for many of us to make resolutions and promises such as exercising more and visiting the home bound. Before we get too far into the year I’d like to propose that it is also a good time to start the year by reviewing your medicine cabinets! This can be accomplished through a few easy steps that I’ll review:

Clean out your medicine cabinet.

Yes, do some housekeeping! Empty the cabinet, and/or drawer or wherever you keep your prescription and non-prescription medicines and clean out the inside. There may be residue from tablets, grease from tubes of ointment or a sticky mess from spilled cough syrups. Then, inspect each container to see if there are any medicines that have gone beyond their expiration date. If so, put them safely aside and in a minute I’ll address proper techniques for disposal. Now inspect the containers and make sure caps are in place and that safety caps are used if there is any chance that curious children might accidentally run across your supply.

Get rid of leftover medicines you no longer need.

Do any of your medicine containers have a few left-over antibiotic pills that you used for October’s strep throat or maybe a little bit of the medicine you used when you were constipated in July? Give serious consideration to discarding those as well as other medicines you no longer need. Set them aside and, stay tuned for my recommendations for proper disposal.

Make sure you know what all of your medicines are for.

This step sounds pretty basic, but we often get into a pattern of repetition and it is not uncommon for a person to end up taking a medicine for months or even years without re-evaluating whether it is still needed. A good example of this is the stomach ulcer medicine class known as “proton pump inhibitors” which include the prescription medicines Nexium, Prilosec, Prevacid, Protonix and their non-prescription cousins. Many people only need short courses of therapy with these medicines such as weeks or a month or two but end up taking them for years. There is considerable concern that chronic use of these medicines may increase the likelihood of pneumonia; hip, wrist or spinal fractures and intestinal infections so if you are taking any prescriptions that you think you might no longer need talk with your health care provider.

You might also consider speaking with a senior care pharmacist who might even be able to visit your house to inspect all of your medications and give make some recommendations about which may no longer be necessary. In many cases the money you pay for this review is more than offset by cost savings gained from the pharmacist’s recommendations. You can locate a local senior care pharmacist through the web site “www.seniorcarepharmacist.com.”

Properly dispose of medicines that you no longer need.

Now, this is the tricky part since because there are a number of bad options for disposal and only one really good one. You should definitely NOT flush your unneeded medicines down the toilet or drain. The environmental impact can be very harmful with traces of the medicines ending up in our water supply or poisoning our fish. Tossing prescription bottles in the trash can be dangerous in many ways not the least of which is that curious children might accidentally find them. Or, someone might inadvertently find them in the dumpster, and if they are sleeping pills or pain pills they might end up “on the street” perhaps endangering someone. Some people recommend that you take your unwanted medicines and mix then with cola and coffee grounds or kitty litter and then put them in the trash, but the problem with that method is that the medicine eventually ends up in the environment.

The best solution is to identify a local “drug “take-back” program. You may not have heard of this movement which is establishing a national program of neighborhood groups or law enforcement agencies which can take unneeded medicines from consumers and dispose of them in a secure and environmentally friendly way. You can find out more by visiting the web site www.takebacknetwork.com.

Again, Happy New Year and I hope you can start the year by performing an annual review of your medicine cabinets!

William Simonson, also known as Dr. Si. is a pharmacist with 40 years experience working with seniors and their medicines. Visit his web site at www.AskDrSi.com.