Incorrect storage of medicines in summer can cause major health problems in the body, as the quality and efficacy characteristics of the medicines are altered. The experts emphasize that both storage and transport conditions are especially important in the context of a heat wave, since certain drugs can even accentuate the effect of high temperatures. These are medications that, at high temperatures, aggravate exhaustion and dehydration syndrome, and can even cause heat strokes or induce hyperthermia.
What drugs should we avoid heating up?
They can be divided into three groups.
A) Medications that can aggravate exhaustion-dehydration syndrome and heat stroke: Some diuretics such as furosemide or torasemide and thiazide and distal (potassium-sparing); drugs that alter kidney function (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, some antibiotics, some antidiabetics…); medications that can be altered by dehydration (lithium salts, digoxin…) and those that can prevent caloric loss from the body (neuroleptics, H1 antihistamines…).
B) Medications that can induce hyperthermia (increased body temperature) and promote thermal imbalances: There are two syndromes capable of producing these imbalances. On the one hand, neuroleptic malignant syndrome (caused by neuroleptic, antipsychotic, antiparkinsonian drugs); on the other, serotonin syndrome (produced by serotonergic agonists, some antidepressants, MAOIs, lithium…).
C) Medicines that can indirectly aggravate the effects of heat: Those that can lower blood pressure (anti-hypertensive and anti-anginal) and those that act on the state of wakefulness (psychotropics in general).
“We must be attentive to the general state of those patients who take this type of medication, as well as promote a series of measures that help control their body temperature: cool environment, good ventilation and aeration, and continuous hydration. It is important to highlight that, Despite the high temperatures, in no case should the treatments established by the doctors be suspended,” the experts emphasize.
Caution
Before consuming any medicine, both its condition and its external appearance should be checked, especially in the case of creams, eye drops, suppositories or ovules, in which their stability can be known directly by their appearance. In case of any suspicion, therefore, it is better to discard them. In the event that the conservation has not been correct, or the product has changed upon opening it, the medicine, warn the specialists, “should not be consumed under any circumstances”.
At home
As far as home storage is concerned, pharmacists advise keeping medications in cool, dry places, avoiding direct exposure to sunlight. Health experts specifically recommend that they not be stored in the kitchen or bathroom, because they are precisely the rooms in the house that, in general, tend to accumulate the most heat throughout the day. And of course, always keep them out of the reach of children.
In the car
Taking into account the high temperatures that are being reached, the specialized personnel warns of the need to carry out a correct use of the drugs in view of the prospect of making a trip, since special attention must be paid to the medicines that must be kept cold or that must be used as soon as they have been taken out of the corresponding refrigerator. When traveling and on road trips, it is also warned that it is not advisable to carry medications in the trunk or glove compartment of the car, because they can reach very high temperatures.
Requirements
The specific transport conditions for each medication are always essential, but even more so in very hot situations. In general, drugs that have an established storage between 2ºC and 8ºC should always be kept in a refrigerator and, therefore, transported in refrigerated isothermal packaging that does not freeze. And medicines that must remain at a temperature between 25ºC and 30ºC must be transported in non-refrigerated isothermal packaging to prevent them from reaching higher temperatures.