Call them bug-out bags or get-home bags or whatever else you want; they’re important. These bags are stashes of preps that you can pick up and take off on a moment’s notice with whether you’re home or on the road. Preppers think about these a lot; and rightly so. I’ve noticed one weak spot in them: The medications get old on you if you’re not careful. How do you keep those medications fresh?
The problem of keeping medications fresh
The plan with these bags is they’re pre-packed and always close to hand wherever you are. Salty and I each have one in our vehicles, meant to sustain for three days if necessary. We’ve got expanded versions at home, should we need to leave from here. Each bag has a set of necessary medications.
The problem is that the bags are meant to be “set it and forget it”. They’re there, they’re ready, they don’t need attention — except the medications. They, more than anything else in those bags, tend to deteriorate with age. Sure, I know that meds are often good beyond the listed expiration dates. Nevertheless, they don’t last forever.
Solution one: Controlled environments keep medications fresh
First, we keep the emergency bags in as friendly an environment as possible. Heat, freeze/thaw cycles, humidity, and light all promote chemical degradation. The bags in the house, while handy, are also somewhere cool, dark, and low-humidity.
The car bags are more difficult, because cars in Missouri get hot in the summer and freeze/thaw cycles in the winter. Still, we keep them dark and sealed to reduce humidity. Since we don’t have a good answer for the temperature control, we keep that in mind and refresh those stocks more often.
Solution two: Swap to fresh stocks on a regular cycle
We do general prep overhauls fall and spring, as needs differ by season here. When it’s time to put the hand warmers and winter boots back in the car, we take out the car bags and overhaul the medications.
Cheap meds not often used, such as anti-diarrheal drugs, just get dumped into the container for delivery to the town’s safe disposal drop-off. It’s no big waste, as the bags contain only a limited number of doses of each, labeled in their own tiny zip-lock bags.
Prescription medications from the bags get put right into the daily dispensers where they will be used immediately.
Solution three: The pill box
Yeah, I know, you’re getting old when you need a pill box to keep your meds straight. Let’s be real though; more than half of Americans currently are prescribed a daily dose of at least one medication. More than that choose to take something every day, such as vitamins or herbal supplements. If you set up a pill box once a week it’s easier to remember what’s been taken and what not (“hmm, Mon am is still full, guess I haven’t taken my morning pill yet”).
So after way too long of not thinking about it, I just bought a second box. One box is always completely full of daily medications fresh and ready to roll; the other is partially full and in use that week. I still refill every week, but now keep a week ahead.
Pretty awesome prep for $1, really. Keep an extra one stocked and ready to grab on the way out the door.
The pill box benefits
Why do I feel stupid for not thinking of the second box earlier? It’s got multiple benefits:
- Provides a week’s worth of warning that a prescription is about to run out. Since I fill a week ahead of time, if I run out filling the box I’ve got more than a week to get the refill. Is anything more anti-prepper than chasing around at the last minute for something you knew would be needed?
- Has a week’s worth of prescription medications fresh and ready to grab. If we have to grab our bags and go, it’s an extra ten seconds to add a full week’s worth of prescription meds. This is the biggest prepper benefit.
- Medications are in great shape when needed.
- If we’re stuck in the house an extra week, at least meds aren’t one of our problems for that week.
Bonus tip: Consider formulations
Liquid medications degrade fastest, in general. Gel caps melt in the heat, even car interior heat. Spray bottles are bulky and prone to failure. Pills have the best shelf-life. These are things to keep in mind when deciding which varieties to stock in the bags.
Keeping the medications fresh is kind of a pain, I admit. Still, our ‘prepper stocks’ have saved us considerable misery — and that’s without having to have faced any really serious dark times. It’s a pain worth taking.