By Shannon Magsam, Ladybug’s mama
“Honey, it looks like on our anniversary this year you were taking a steroid,” I called out from the kitchen as I looked at the 2/26/08 date on the Prednisone bottle. I was weeding out expired medicines from our medicine stash dating back to 2001.
“Ooh! And four days BEFORE our anniversary I was taking Amoxicillin!” I said loudly, noting with sarcasm: “We really had a great anniversary.”
“What DID we do this year, anyway?” I said, mostly to myself, racking my brain. (I know what we probably didn’t do, judging from the dates on those bottles.)
My husband piped up and reminded me that Ladybug had undiagnosed-as-of-yet pneumonia then – she was really too sick to make it to her 6th birthday party, but we had two dozen kids coming so we carried on — and a few days later we were all so sick my parents had to come up and make soup, bleach the house and make sure we didn’t end up dead.
“Oh, yeah,” I said, remembering. “That blew.”
I even found pain medication dating back to Sept. 11, 2001, when I’d rushed to the OB/GYN in pain and was found to have a large fibroid hanging out with the baby. Earlier that month, my husband had been prescribed Lipitor for his high cholesterol. I couldn’t keep anything down, so apparently he was eating for three.
There was also the usual assortment of vitamins, cold medicine and stomach remedies, most outdated. There was a small bottle of eucalyptus essential oil that my friend and I had bought to stave off colds. (Her nurse mother swore that if you were in a germy place you could put eucalyptus oil on a cotton ball, give it a good sniff and be home free. I still don’t know about that one.)
After I had a bag full of pills and liquids, I called my pharmacy to see if they had a disposal program. Nope. They thought there might be someone in Bella Vista. Hmmm. I don’t just want to throw these pills in the trash or flush them down the toilet.
Does anyone out there know of a pharmacy who disposes of medicine properly? Please send me a message! I’m drowning in a sea of outdated pills and liquids over here.
What outdated medications are in your cabinet?
THANK YOU for bringing up this topic! I’m sorry I don’t have an answer for you, but you were right to not want to flush the pills.
I just got through reading an article about all of the PRESCRIPTION medication they are finding in our tap water! Apparently, when people flush the medicine or even (ahem) their body does, it goes into our water system and even after sterilization and filtering, the medicine is still there!
Ugh.
Let me know if you find a place!
This is an important topic!
Bella Vista actually has a drug incineration program – Pyromed. They have drop offs outside Bella Vista, although I’m not sure where those are.
Good luck!