It is time to Spring Clean your medicine cabinet.

How often have you gone to your medicine cabinet to find that you don’t have what you want, or items have gone out of date? When it comes to your spring-cleaning routine, try adding the medicine cabinet to the list of things to clean out and update.

Expired medicines and products

Expiry dates refer to a product unopened. Try and remember to always place the date on any medicines/products when you open them – if it has been longer than a year since opened then there is a good chance that they need to be disposed of.

The Department of Health warns that storage of expired and unwanted medicines in the home can be dangerous and unsafe disposal of unwanted medications can lead to environmental harm. It is recommended that Prescription medicines, over-the-counter medicines, herbal or complementary supplements, gels, liquids, creams, and pet medicines can all be returned to your community pharmacy for free, safe disposal.

Products you should have in your medicine cabinet.

Sometimes it is easy to forget what to place in your medicine cabinet until you need it. Hopefully, the following will help you with a couple of ideas to add to your shopping list:

First Aid booklet – is always handy to quickly lookup whether you need cold or hot packs, whether to apply cream or just pressure. Also, it helps to add local emergency numbers into the booklet for easy reference.

Sunburn relief – Aloe vera gels and sprays, or Epsom salt can be soothing.

Antiseptic – Antiseptic solution and creams used to clean open wounds.

Support Bandages – Accidents happen, and it is wise to have the correct support bandage for when you sprain an ankle or tear a ligament.

Cold & Hot compress – WOW! Mobility & Rehab stocks lupin packs. These packs can be heated or cooled. Rather than wheat packs, Lupin heat packs retain temperatures the best and last longer than the traditional wheat packs.

Antihistamine ointment – to help with any bites, stings or rashes.