This shop has been compensated by Inmar Intelligence and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #TakeBackDay2021
Do you Spring Clean your Medicine Cabinet?
Last year while spring cleaning my husband and I added our medicine cabinet to the list of places that need to be cleaned! Between the surgeries, seasonal allergies, and asthma we had an abundance of medication that had been prescribed to each person in my household at some point!
In the past, I have heard how improper disposal of unused medications causes damage to our environment. For many of us, we were taught to flush medications down the toilet, pour them down the drain, or throwing it in the garbage. LifeInCheck™ Consumer Drug Take-Back Program was created as a safe option for consumers to discard their unused or outdated prescription medications in safe locations located across the US.
Last winter before the world shut down my children’s doctor prepped us for COVID, and asthma season by prescribing everything we usually need during that season to ensure we had everything we needed so we didn’t have to come to the hospital because of the shutdown. At the same time, my husband had recently had surgery, and two days later he had to return to the hospital with what they thought was a possible infection. He was stabilized and later found out that he had a reaction from his surgery. After surgery, he was sent home with pain medication, but after returning to the hospital he was then sent home with more medication.
Over the course of the last 9 years, my daughter has had a total of 11 surgeries/procedures. She was born with a cleft lip and palate, and many of her surgeries were corrective and cosmetic surgeries. Each time she has a procedure we are sent home with medication that sometimes goes unused due to her not needing something as strong and over-the-counter pain relievers are what she needs.
At the end of last year, we realized we had an ABUNDANCE of unused medications. We knew we eventually had to find a way to dispose of the medication because there was only so much we would be able to provide safe storage for, and with young children, we don’t want to take the chance of them ever messing with the medicine.
LifeInCheck has created a tool to help us safely dispose of unused or expired medications. Simply enter your city and state or zip code and search radius and a list will be provided of safe drug take-back locations in your area.
In my area, I was led to The James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute. I packed my medications up before leaving home and headed to the hospital. Due to COVID restrictions, I was only allowed in by myself after going through the prescreening process.
The receptacle box was located in the outpatient pharmacy.
The process was extremely easy, safe, and secure!
After disposing of the medications, I felt a sense of accomplishment and relief knowing that we were able to clean our medicine cabinets out safely!
I highly recommend family’s including spring cleaning the medicine cabinet to the cleaning list!
National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day is on April 24, 2021!
In an effort to take better care of our environment, and to make sure prescription drugs don’t end up in the wrong hands let’s make a conscious effort to clean out our medicine cabinets and dispose of the medications the proper way!
What do you do with your unused medications and prescriptions? Have you ever participated in a Consumer Drug Take-Back service?
