Mrs D

Is it alright to store my medications together? I take three kinds of blood pressure medicine and iron and potassium. I keep my pain and anxiety seperate and the vitamins that need to be taken alone out. I usually only do about three weeks at a time and I use my old medicine bottles and mark the day on each. Is there any reason why I should not continue doing this? It sure keeps the stress down having my medicines all sorted out for the mornings I have to be in a hurry. Thanks for all the information you give us.

This is a good question.

Some drugs do not do well together mixed in the same bottle.
And some it is not an issue.

If you are using amber tight closure bottles from a pharmacy to store daily
meds, instead of those medication dispensers, it is better.

Electrolytes like potassium, sodium chloride, or magnesium chloride attract moisture and can contaminate other drugs and damage them with time, since they will attract moisture.

Things to look for:
changing color, swelling up (some pills may swell in size, become crumbly)
or sticking together. Any strange odor. Any one of these signals damage.
Aspirin, salsalate, will start to smell like vinegar for example, when damaged.
If you have capsules, do a test squeeze on them. They should be resilient. This pertains to real capsules, not caplets which are only shaped like capsules. Gelcaps like Tylenol are hard to begin with and are not "real capsules".
If they become hard as a rock with time...that signals moisture damage. Once moisture enters the picture, drugs degrade, change.

You can ask the pharmacy to save the little cylinder moisture pellets from their bottles. Drugs that are coated (like Wellbutrin), will leave no residue on them. So they can be recycled. They can be reactivated with a hair dryer to blow off moisture periodically, at the lower setting.

If any of your drugs has a terrible odor like spironolactone-- I would not keep it in a multi drug container.

All bottles should be tightly closed, and protected from light (amber plastic).

Vitamins are best kept separate...since they usually have an odor.
Antioxidants like Vit C, E are affected by light.

Thanks for this info, hadn't thought of this information myself, but will now. I only lay-out my meds/vitamins on a weekly basis, but will be sure to separate further and keep from light more. Thanks!

Jeanine

So that's why my Magnesium started having little beads of moisture on it!!!!! Duh...!! I kept thinking I had spilled something on my pill box. Thanks Mrs. D. We sure appreciate you!!

Billye

pssst...keep those little gel packs. hubby got water in a very expensive watch. i put it in a baggie with about 4 or 5 of them over night. wicked the moisture right out.

ok...back to our regularly scheduled thread.

THANKS MRS D! And i just threw one of those pellets away yesterday. I bought clean bottles and caps from my pharmacy just for this purpose. so far I think I have been keeping it all just as you said. I will keep an eye on my potassium pills. They are huge and one of the reasons the medicine containers you can buy did not work. Now I'll start trying to set it all up when I start the last week's supply of measured out medicine. I coud do one just for medicne and keep the vitamins in a seperate pill bottle and maybe just do a week and check them carefully. Whew I was so worried I hated to ask afraid it would not be acceptable. It is a hassle I know many face with the amounts of medicine they have to take. Plus our needed vitamins too.