While it’s probably not always on your to-do list, cleaning out your medicine cabinet is an important task.  You need to make sure you have all the supplies you need to care for your family while getting rid of anything that is old or outdated.  Since the medicine cabinet plays an important role in your house, take the time today to clean it out.

Start by taking everything out of the medicine cabinet.  Give it a good cleaning with white vinegar and baking soda or with a disinfecting cleaner.  While the cabinet is drying, take everything out of the box and examine it carefully.  Throw away any outdated or expired prescriptions.  Remove the labels from the bottles before throwing them away.  Go through your over the counter medicines and remedies.  Get rid of anything that has expired.  If you have two bottles of something, either get rid of the older bottle or mark it clearly with permanent marker that it should be used first.

Since you’re going through what you have in your medicine cabinet, take a moment to see if you are missing any kind of treatments or medicines.  Don’t forget to buy replacements for the outdated medicines you threw out.  Some of the things you might want to make sure you have in your medicine cabinet include:

• Antibiotic cream
• Several different sizes of Band-aids
• Cotton swabs and cotton balls for applying topical medicines
• Stomach medicines to treat diarrhea, heartburn and nausea
• Allergy medication like Benadryl
• Cough and cold medicine
• Vapor rub
• Topical pain treatments like Aspercreme or Absorbine Jr.

When you put everything back you might want to prioritize based on what you use on a daily basis.  Any medicines should be well out of the reach of children.

On a regular basis go through your medicine cabinet to make sure you have all the supplies you need and that nothing has expired.  This way you’ll always have the medicine you need on hand.  What could be worse than getting a cold and not having cough medicine, or needing some over the counter medicine in the middle of the night to find out you don’t have it in the house?