Medicine Safety

As drugs are defined as a substance meant to treat, prevent, or cure a disease, it is important to know that they are organized into two generic categories: Prescription and Over-the-Counter(OTC). Though it seems as if everyone is already fairly knowledgeable in this fact, we would like to remind our readers that awareness is key to wellness, and that there are people who are not well versed in the subject of medications. To put that into perspective; if you were to show a child an OTC drug container and a Prescription drug container, will they know the difference? Depending on their age and education on the subject, there is a possibility that they don’t. We want to help mitigate that lack of knowledge to our readers’ children so that they understand the dangers of mixing up OTC drugs with Prescription drugs.

Teach your children the difference between an OTC drug and a Prescription drug container. Prescription drugs all have the named of the prescribed, and typically come in orange containers. This is not always the case, as prescription drugs can come in all shapes, colors and sizes. For the most part, many come in orange, locked containers. In regards to not being able to tell the difference physically between containers, for very young children, accessibility is a huge factor in the danger of drugs at home. Regardless if medication is OTC or Prescription, toddlers and young children don’t understand that they can’t just put pills in their mouth. With that being the case, overdosing any type of medication can cause irreversible harm or even death even with some OTC medications. Be sure to make your medicine cabinet only accessible to older kids and adults in your home who know the ins and outs of medication consumption. Lastly, teach your children who are able to tell the difference between containers to always read the labels on either type of drug. Dosage is paramount to their health, so please, please make sure they are aware of how to read the labels before they start taking medications on their own.