How to Store Cilomni-T 10/40 in Indian Homes

The pack instruction is simple. Store Cilomni-T 10/40 in a cool, dark and dry place, protected from light and moisture, and keep the medicine out of reach of children.

That single line covers the three enemies of a film-coated tablet: heat, light and water vapour. A cupboard shelf in an inner room, away from the window and away from the kitchen platform, meets it far better than most of the places people actually keep their strips.

Summer temperatures across much of India climb well past what a medicine cupboard should ever see, and the monsoon adds humidity that softens tablets and dulls the coating. Two practical rules help.

First, do not store the strip on top of the fridge, next to the stove, on a sunny windowsill or in the bathroom, where steam collects every day. Second, do not leave the pack in a parked car, because the cabin heats quickly. If your house turns very humid in the rains, keep the carton inside an airtight tin with the strips still sealed.

Cilomni-T 10/40 comes as 10 x 10 tablets, that is ten blister strips of ten tablets each. Leave every tablet in its blister until the moment you take it. The foil is the moisture barrier, and once a tablet is popped out into an open box it starts taking up humidity.

Keep the outer carton, because it carries the batch number, the manufacturing and expiry dates and the Schedule H warning. If you use a weekly pill organiser, fill it for a few days at a time rather than for a full month, and keep the organiser somewhere dry.

Carry the medicine in hand baggage rather than in checked luggage, so it stays with you and avoids the hold. Take a copy or a photograph of the prescription, especially for long journeys and for travel abroad.

On train and bus journeys, keep the strip in a small pouch away from a hot window seat. Carry a few days more than you need, since a chemist far from home cannot dispense a Schedule H medicine without a valid prescription. For pilgrimages and long family functions, pack the tablets first rather than last.

Check the expiry date on the strip every time you open a new one, not only on the day you buy. Look also for broken blisters, discoloured or chipped tablets, a torn carton or a missing batch number, and take any doubtful pack back to the chemist who supplied it.

Do not flush leftover tablets down the toilet, and do not throw loose tablets into an open household bin where a child or an animal can reach them. Ask your pharmacist about local take back or disposal arrangements. Scratch out personal details from the label before you discard the carton.

This article is for general information only and is not a substitute for advice from a registered medical practitioner.