Don’t let medications sizzle in summer’s heat

This is the worst time of the year for drugs. Heat and humidity are the enemies of many expensive medications.

Check the guidelines for storing your prescriptions, and you will usually discover that they should be kept at room temperature. That’s supposed to mean 68 to 77 degrees Fahrenheit. For a short time, temperatures can fluctuate down to 59 or as high as 86 degrees.

If you’re lucky enough to have air conditioning, you can keep your medicine within that range, but millions of people don’t have that luxury. That means their room temperature soars when the heat gets intense. Folks in Arizona have been combating record temperatures for weeks.

But even if you live in a cooler climate, summer can wreak havoc with your medicine. If you pick up your prescription at the pharmacy, do not leave your pills in the glove compartment or the trunk of your car. Such spaces get hot quickly when a car is sitting in a sunny parking lot. Even the interior of the car is not a good place to leave delicate drugs.

What if you don’t pick up your prescription? Millions of Americans now get their medicines by mail order. Have you ever noticed how hot it can get inside your mailbox?

Last summer, we heard from a reader who got a shipment of dietary supplements: “I noticed the box was very hot. I stuck a thermometer through the seal, and it registered over 100 degrees F.”

Most package-delivery services do not use refrigerated vehicles to transport medicines across the country or from one neighborhood to another. And that means your prescription could spend several hours or even days baking in the back of a hot van.

In most cases, this kind of shipment does not cause serious health risks. Most people buy only 30 days’ worth of medicines at a time. Even if high temperatures speed deterioration significantly, a month may not be long enough to cause a serious difference.

Liquid medicines are another story. They are often more susceptible to damage when exposed to extreme temperature fluctuations. In the winter, they could freeze, and complex molecular structures might change. In the summer, temperatures over 100 degrees can also affect the viability of certain liquid compounds.

Some pharmacies will not ship such drugs if they require refrigeration. Eyedrops and injections such as insulin are examples. Insulin needs to be kept out of the sun, and it should be kept cool, less than 86 degrees Fahrenheit.

One place where liquid medicine can mean the difference between life and death is an ambulance. Research has shown that temperatures inside an ambulance frequently do not conform to ideal drug-storage guidelines.

For some of the medicines administered in an ambulance or medical helicopter, storage temperature is not an important issue. But for others, especially lifesaving cardiac drugs, it could be critical.

Whether it’s an ambulance, the family car or the bathroom medicine chest, we need to pay closer attention to drug storage. No one would be foolish enough to leave fresh fish, chocolate or a quart of milk sitting in the back of a car while they did other errands on a summer day. We need to treat pricey prescription medicines with equal thoughtfulness.