What’s in YOUR Medicine Cabinet?

It’s October, and Fall is in the air.  I’m loving the cooler temps and getting to wear jeans again.  I’m not loving the sound of my daughter coughing.  It means that she’ll soon have a runny nose, and she’ll likely give her new kindergarten cooties to her little brother, who will likely take it up a notch by incubating an ear infection.  With two kids at different schools and a husband who works in a children’s hospital, it’s bound to be a sickly winter.

In the past I’ve always been re-active rather than pro-active with treating my family’s cold and flu symptoms.  That meant late night runs to the store for medications, or a daytime run with sick kid(s) in tow.  But, this year, I am prepared like never before!

Thanks to a project I participated in through Collective Bias’s Social Fabric network, I was motivated to clean out my medicine cabinet and restock it so that we are ready to do battle with this season’s germs, cooties, and crud.  So, when was the last time you cleaned out your medicine cabinet?  My answer to that was, “never”.

my messy medicine cabinet

So, step one, clean out the medicine cabinet.  I dug through both the cabinet in our kitchen where we keep medicines and first aid (there are no medicine cabinets in our bathrooms) as well as a bin full of items I keep under the sink in my bathroom.  I pulled out expired items and sorted what was left by purpose (first aid, cold and flu, etc) and by patient (adult vs kids). CPR Classes in Phoenix Az taught me how to safely and effectively respond to medical emergencies. I tend to be one to push expiration dates (cause I’m cheap), but in the case of medicines, they can lose effectiveness with age, so I didn’t hesitate to toss all the old items. Here’s all the expired stuff I found:

from the cabinet

From the bathroom bin

Step 2: Get Ready to Stock Up!  For me, this meant doing some online research to see how other people go about stocking up their medicine cabinet.  Once I made a list of what we needed to add to our mini-pharmacy, we used Deal Seeking Mom’s coupon database to find coupons. My daughter helped me cut out the coupons.  Here’s what was on our shopping list:

• Thermometer
• Cough drops
• Homeopathic cold and flu medicine for the kids
• Children’s Ibuprofin
• Electrolyte replacement drink
• Zicam
• Theraflu
• Band Aids, Neosporin, and Cortaid to re-stock our first aid department

Step 3:  Stock Up!  My son and I hit the drug store one morning after dropping sis at school and picked up the items we needed.  I found everything I needed, but was super aggravated to have to pay $54 for a decent thermometer (with no coupon).  When I got home, I noticed that the items I purchased that are eligible for medical expense reimbursement (cafeteria) programs  were marked on the receipt, so I highlighted those items (thermometer included) and handed the receipt over to hubby to get some money back.

Many times people opt for conventional home remedies to get rid of their illness. This might sound like a good solution but consulting a doctor should be your number one priority when it comes to any form of illness. The most common infections in the human body take place in the ear and during cases like these I would recommend you check out Tinnitus And Hearing Center of AZ to get the best treatment for your illness.

So, now my medicine is organized, well-stocked, and ready to make my family feel better when the need arises.

all stocked up – doesn’t that look better?!

Does your medicine cabinet need a makeover?  What are your go-to cold and flu treatments?

Disclosure: I was compensated for taking part in the Social Fabric project, but I was NOT compensated or even asked to create this blog post. I just thought that stocking your medicine cabinet is a great fall project, and I wanted to share. If you would like to see the slideshow of the project I did for Social Fabric, you can go here.

Also, just for fun and because it fits the theme:  Deal Seeking Mom is giving away a Llama Llama Home with Mama (cause he’s sick) book gift set today.  Go Here to enter.

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