How to Store Omnizole-D Capsules in Indian Homes

The label instruction is straightforward: store in a cool, dry and dark place at a temperature not exceeding 25 degrees Celsius, protect from direct sunlight and moisture, and keep out of reach of children.

This matters more than it sounds for a pellet-based capsule. Enteric-coated esomeprazole pellets rely on an intact polymer coat to survive stomach acid, and sustained-release domperidone pellets rely on their own coating to release slowly. Heat and moisture attack both coatings before there is any visible change to the capsule.

Omnizole-D is supplied as 10 x 10 capsules, so most households will have several blisters in hand at once. Store the whole carton together rather than scattering loose strips around the house.

Room temperature in much of India climbs well above 25 degrees for months at a time, and the monsoon adds humidity that seeps into cardboard and paper.

Good places:

Places to avoid:

Refrigeration is not required and is not advised. Condensation forms every time the strip moves between fridge and room, and that moisture is exactly what the coating cannot tolerate.

Leave each capsule sealed in its blister pocket until you are ready to take it. Cutting out a week of capsules into a pill box exposes them to room humidity for days, which suits plain tablets far better than it suits coated pellets.

Handle the strip with dry hands. Press the capsule out through the foil rather than peeling the backing off several pockets at once. If a pocket is torn, punctured or already open when you buy the pack, take it back to the chemist.

Discard any capsule that is cracked, sticky, swollen, discoloured or leaking pellets, and any strip that has been through a spill. Keep the outer carton until the last capsule is used, because the batch number and expiry live there and are needed for any query.

For train and road journeys, keep the strips in your hand baggage in a small airtight box rather than in a suitcase in the boot. On flights, keep medicines in cabin baggage along with a copy or photograph of the prescription, which also helps at security and at customs.

Carry a few days more than you need, allowing for delays, and plan refills before long festival breaks when chemist timings change.

The expiry date is printed on the carton and on the blister foil, usually as a month and year, and it means the end of that month. Check it when you buy and again before starting a new strip. An expired capsule may have lost coating integrity even if it looks normal, so it is not worth using.

Capsules are attractive to small children. Store the carton on a high shelf or in a locked drawer, never in a handbag left on a bed or in a bedside drawer within reach. If a child swallows a capsule, take the pack and go to the nearest hospital immediately rather than waiting for symptoms.

When a course ends or a strip expires, do not flush capsules down the toilet and do not throw loose capsules into open household waste. Remove them from the blister, mix them with something unappealing such as used tea leaves or soil, seal the mixture in a bag and put it in the general waste. Tear up the carton first so that your name, batch and prescription details are not readable.

Many hospital pharmacies and chemists in India accept unused medicines for proper disposal, so ask locally before discarding a large quantity. This article is for general information only and is not a substitute for advice from a registered medical practitioner.