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Hey friends! With so many colleges going remote for the holiday season, I was thrilled to welcome my college-aged kids home for the holidays! Life is always more fun with them home.
A few months ago one of my college-age kids confided in me that they were struggling with anxiety and depression.
I don’t want to go into a lot of details here so as to keep my kids’ trust, but the transition from high school to college is a difficult one. Kids deal with the added pressures differently, so they began seeing a counselor in town. Initially, the counseling was enough, but soon it was obvious that more help was needed.
The counselor suggested we see a doctor about getting additional support with medication. So we sought out a good doctor and found the right medication(s), and thankfully, they have been very helpful!
The problem
However, as a parent, I want to be mindful of having prescriptions, or any medications in the house! Also, as a former teacher, I knew that addiction often starts during the teenage years! I didn’t want any medication left unattended. They can be dangerous, addictive and expensive, so we don’t want to simply have them stored up in a kitchen cabinet where anyone could access them.
In fact, I read a statistic from the CDC reporting 50,000 young children are brought to the emergency room every year because they got into medications that were left within their reach! (CDC, June 2020)
Now, I don’t have any toddlers in the house anymore, but I do have school-age children, adult kids, relatives, and visitors who come and go regularly. Practicing safe medication storage while at home and traveling can help keep everyone safe!
What are the best practices when having prescription and over-the-counter medications in our homes?
Out of sight, out of mind
The first step is to make sure all medications, whether prescription or over-the-counter, are put in a safe place and out of sight. It’s important to do an annual walk-through of your home to gather up any medications that may be left unattended and determine the best place to store them.
Interestingly, the ‘medicine cabinet’ isn’t the optimum location. The bathroom can have excessive moisture which is damaging to a lot of medications. Along the same lines, any place that has a lot of heat can cause medications to deteriorate prematurely.
Knowing these facts, my husband and I put our heads together and came up with a couple of locations in the house to store medications. We decided to keep prescription meds in one place, and over-the-counter in a separate location. Also, because we have college-age kids, we knew they would need to have a safe way to store their medications while they are at home, yet still have easy access to them.
Unfortunately, it’s not enough to simply move the medications to a different location, even if they are out of sight! Kids are naturally curious, and additional measures are required. Because these medications can be potentially life-threatening if taken incorrectly, it’s necessary to take further precautions.
Safe Rx Locking Pill Bottles
After doing some research we found the Safe Rx Locking Pill Bottles . These locking pill bottles come in a couple of different sizes, small and large, and you simply slip most small-sized original pill bottles into the larger locking containers. You can store prescription or over-the-counter medications in these Safe Rx Locking Pill Bottles easily. That way we knew the medications were secure and others wouldn’t be able to get a hold of the potentially harmful substances.
The Safe Rx Locking Pill Bottles were also the perfect solution for our college-aged kids who often transported their meds to and from college. We were concerned that since they had friends, and visitors in their apartments, it was best that their prescriptions were always locked away. It was the best way to secure the medications while making sure they had access to them as needed. Furthermore, the Safe Rx Locking Pill Bottles are tamper evident, so you can tell if someone has tried to get into the bottle. This is a great feature for parents with older or adult kids
For our younger children, we found the locking pill bottles particularly helpful when they had to take medications to school, or to a friend’s house for the weekend! All I needed to do was place the original container in the locking pill bottle and pop the locking cap on top! I would then email the special code to unlock the cap to the school nurse so she would have access to the meds.
Are you seeing the peace of mind these locking pill bottles could give to your family?
How Safe Rx Locking Pill Bottles Work
Each locking pill bottle has a 4-digit combination attached to the lid that you can set yourself with an encoder. The entire process to set your code takes approximately 3 seconds or less!
Safe Rx sends an encoder where you set the cap with 4-digit code on the encoder. Align the arrow with the code you’ve chosen and firmly press the cap down on the encoder. As you do this, the encoder sets the code by shearing off the tabs on the inside of the locking cap. Super simple.
Also, you can register your personalized code on your account with safe-rx.com just in case you forget the code(s).
Traveling with medications
Let’s talk a minute about traveling with medications. Traveling, even if it is just to grandma’s house, can be stressful with kids (no matter what age) in general! But, when you add in the safety factor of needing to take medications on the trip, it’s over the top!
Obviously, I don’t simply stop taking medications when I travel, I take them with me. Yet I’ve found it very frustrating due to the fact I was continuously worried about if I had put my medication away so that other people couldn’t get to them. I know I’m not the only one that’s been in this situation.
I’ve also found that Safe Rx Locking Pill Bottles are the safest way to travel with medications. Before I leave I quickly place my original pill bottles I need for the trip in the Safe Rx Locking Pill Bottles , pop the caps on and make sure they are secure, then store them in my purse, travel bag, or suitcase. Done. No need to worry.
Basically, we all have medications, over-the-counter or prescriptions, at home, work or in your purse that need to be secured, and currently may not be! Walking through a few quick steps and investing in a few Safe Rx Locking Pill Bottles can be an easy solution and keep everyone in the house safe!
Other methods of securing medications
Of course, there are other ways to keep your prescription bottles safe, such as:
- A lockbox
- Safely and properly disposing of all outdated/expired/old prescriptions (and throwing those in the trash is not the proper way)
- Hiding your prescriptions (not always a successful method)
However, I feel comforted using Safe Rx that secures the medications with a code of my own.
Discount Code
There you have it friends. I hope you found this post valuable. Also, Safe Rx has generously given us a discount code we can use through the beginning of the new year! Use code: LULULOVES20% for 20% off your purchase on the website.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this subject! What are some tips or things you have done to keep your family safe when medication is involved? Please feel free to drop me a comment below!
Happy shopping friends.
XOXO
Cindyh
