Is This My Inhaler or Yours?

With a family of 5 with allergies and asthma, we have a lot of allergy and asthma medicines in our house.

As I was getting ready for work in our new house, I was surprised to see 2 identical-looking blue inhalers with spacers sitting side by side on the counter. Huh? Two of them?

A house of inhalers

Confused, I picked up both inhalers. I realized that my son had a new blue inhaler that looked exactly like mine, but was different. His is an inhaled corticosteroid, but mine was a combination inhaler.

I realized it was time to organize all of our medications in our new house. In our last house, we had a different kitchen with a large drawer for inhalers and a decorative box in the corner with different nose sprays and allergy meds.

The weird thing about asthma is that what works for 1 person may not work for another. All 5 of us prefer a different allergy nose spray and different allergy pills. So find what works for your body!

Organizing our medicine cabinet

I found a corner cabinet in the new kitchen that was quite large, so I decided to find the biggest lazy Susan that would fit in our cupboard. If you are shopping online, you can search for these using the terms:

• Lazy Susan
• Turntable
• Rotating tray

I divided the tray into 5 sections (visualize slicing a pizza into 5 big slices) and filled each section with that person's allergy pills, allergy nose spray, and controller inhaler. Each morning, I could just spin the tray until I found "my section" of my allergy and asthma medicines.

There are a variety of medication organization ideas online. Many have photos that show a plastic box or bin with labels, decorative wicker boxes, etc.

Storage reminders

Be careful where you store your meds! Bathrooms are known to affect medications because of the heat and moisture from the shower and tub. Same thing can happen in a kitchen (though ours are far enough away in a corner cabinet).

And if you have little kids in the house, make sure that you are storing medications safely.

How have you organized your allergy meds and inhalers in your home? Share your organization tips and tricks with other community members by sharing your story. Click the button below to get started!