How to Store Cilomni-10 Tablets in Indian Homes

The label instruction is short: Cilomni-10 Cilnidipine Tablets IP should be stored in a cool and dry place, protected from light and moisture. In practice that means a cupboard or drawer in an inner room, away from direct sunlight, at ordinary room temperature and generally below 30 degrees Celsius.

A closed steel or plastic box inside that cupboard adds a useful second layer against dust and damp. Keep the outer carton, because it carries the batch number, the expiry date and the MRP, and the leaflet inside answers questions later.

Do not refrigerate the tablets unless a pharmacist tells you to. Taking a strip in and out of a fridge causes condensation on the foil, which is exactly the moisture you are trying to avoid.

Much of India spends part of the year hot and part of it damp, and both conditions shorten the useful life of a tablet. Heat can affect the drug itself. Humidity softens tablets, dulls the film coating and can make a strip stick.

Avoid these common spots:

During the monsoon, check the strips now and then. If tablets look discoloured, chipped, sticky or smell unusual, do not take them. Show the strip to your pharmacist.

Cilomni-10 is supplied as 10 x 10 film-coated tablets, that is ten strips of ten. The foil and the plastic pocket are the tablet's real protection, so leave each tablet sealed until you are going to swallow it.

Push the tablet out through the foil rather than peeling the whole backing off. Do not cut a strip in a way that opens neighbouring pockets. Do not decant a week's worth of tablets into an unlabelled bottle with other medicines, because you lose the batch number, the expiry date and the identity of the tablet all at once.

If you use a weekly pill box for convenience, fill it only a few days ahead, keep it closed, and store the remaining strips in their carton. Write the medicine name and expiry on a slip inside the box.

Carry more than you think you will need, since a chemist at your destination cannot dispense a Schedule H medicine without a valid prescription. Take a photograph of your prescription and of the carton and keep it on your phone.

On a flight, keep tablets in your cabin bag, not in checked luggage where temperatures vary. On long train or bus journeys, keep the strip in the middle of your bag rather than in an outer pocket pressed against a hot window. On a pilgrimage or a trek, a small zip pouch with a dry cloth around the strips works well.

If you cross time zones, ask your doctor how to shift the timing. For a once-daily tablet the usual advice is to move gradually towards local time rather than skipping or doubling.

Check the expiry date printed on the carton and on each strip when you buy the pack and again when you open a new strip. Do not use tablets after that date, and do not use a strip that has been left loose in a drawer for months even if the date has not passed.

For disposal, do not flush tablets down the toilet and do not throw a full strip into the open bin where a child or a stray animal could reach it. Remove the tablets from the foil, mix them with something unpalatable such as used tea leaves or soil in a sealed pouch, and put that in the household waste. Scratch out your name on the label. Many hospitals and larger pharmacies accept unused medicines for correct disposal, so ask your chemist first.

Keep every medicine out of reach and out of sight of children, ideally in a cupboard they cannot open. If a child swallows a tablet, take them to a hospital at once with the strip in hand.

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