Guide to Storing Antibiotics at Home

Unfortunately, illnesses don’t much care about disasters. They will keep coming at you regardless of whether or not you’re in an emergency situation. Few people take into consideration that when disasters hit, there won’t be access to the same level of medical care or prescriptions. I hope that this short guide will assist you in storing your antibiotics at home.

You will want to start now and learn how to store antibiotics for your future. There are a handful of antibiotics you want to make sure you have in a good supply. These 7 important antibiotics are: sulfamethoxazole (400mg), amoxicillin (both the 250 as well as the 500 mg), metronidazole (250 mg), ciprofloxacin (store these in both the 250 and the 500 mg), ampicillin (again, both the 250 and the 500 mg), cephalexin (250 and 500 mg) and doxycycline in 100 mg.

If you struggle with recurring illness – especially if you have a compromised immune system – you may be able to talk to your doctor about ordering a few months’ worth of antibiotics from your mail order pharmacy.

You want to store as much of these as you can for upcoming disasters. However, what happens if you can’t get all of the medication you need lined up? You can do what other self reliant folks are doing and buy the equivalent of human antibiotics right off the shelf in your local veterinarian’s office and you don’t need a prescription to get this medication.

There are some medications that are prescribed to animals that are the same ones that are given to humans. Amoxicillin can be found under the name fish-mox forte. The bottle even clearly labels itself as amoxicillin. Doxycycline can be found as bird biotic.

Never toss out antibiotics just because the date on them is past the “use by” date. This date doesn’t mean that if it’s past that time, that suddenly the medication is no longer effective.

All manufacturers are required by law to put a date on the medication. Most medications can last a couple of years past that use by date. But in order for them to be viable, you have to store them properly.

When it comes to keeping antibiotics, heat can render an antibiotic useless. So you don’t want to store them where it is hot or anywhere that moisture can be an issue. So that means you don’t want to store your antibiotics in your bug out bag especially if your bug out bag isn’t kept in a cool place.

Many self reliant folks store their antibiotics in the freezer. You want to seal them up first with a vacuum seal. The lower temperatures keeps the medicine from breaking down the way they would if stored at room temperature or warmer. Some antibiotics will become useless if frozen. Best is to buy a small second refrigerator.. set it to around the middle cold setting. Seal the antibiotic with an oxygen absorber in an air tight bag. Put it in the refrigerator.

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