“Child proof” lids are a thorn in
my side. Most of our over-the counter and all of our prescriptions medications
have these types of lids. Those lids are doubly challenging in that you have to
push the lid down and while holding it down, turn the lid. For people with
arthritis, even the pressure from pushing the lid down is hard, let alone
trying to turn the lid at the same time. It is also difficult for those of us
who are coordination challenged. Shoot, if I can’t walk and chew gum at the
same time, what makes a manufacturer think I can push and turn at the same
time!
These’
child-proof” lids not as much “child-proof” as they are “elderly-proof”. I really believe the elderly have a harder
time opening their medications than children do. I have found you can request your pharmacy to
not have the “child-proof” lid, and this makes it much easier to open the
bottles. And when I purchase over-the-counter medications, I leave those
bottles in the cabinet with the lids off. Is that a safe practice? No! But I do
this so I don’t have to struggle every time I need to take one of those pills.
If I didn’t leave the lids off, I’d probably have a worse headache by the time
I got the aspirin out of the bottle than I had before I tried to open the
bottle.
And to add insult
to injury, the over-the counter medications that don’t have the “child proof
“lids have aluminum foil seals that aren’t easy to remove. I take a steak
knife, puncture the seal, and then cut around the edge to get to the contents
of the bottle.
Who came up with
the idea of “child-proof” lids anyway? Could it have been a special marketing
plan by some enterprising person that proved to be a lucrative venture? And
they are not really “child proof.”
I was struggling
with one of those “child-proof” lids not long ago. My grand-daughter, Sydney, was about six
years old at the time, and I needed to give her some medicine. I couldn’t open
the lid to that medicine, no matter how hard I tried. She watched me as I tried
and finally said, “Here, Grandma, let me have it. I can open it.” And she opened
it with no trouble whatsoever. Now that’s not what I’d call “child-proof”.
Is there a
better solution to making our medicine cabinets safer when there are children
in the house? If there is I can’t think of one. I do feel, however, that
“child-proof” lids are not the answer as they seem to cause problems for too
many other people.
But
this situation has made me wonder about the evolution of medicine for children.
When I gave Sydney
her medicine, it was liquid; I asked her if she needed a drink of water to
rinse the taste away. “Oh, no, Grandma, it really tastes good. I like it.”
I’ve noticed more and more that children’s medications are made to
“taste good.”
When
we give them the medicine do we emphasize the “taste good” part of it or do we
say “this will make you better?”
As
our children were growing up, we didn’t have “taste good” medication. I did as my own mother did; mash the pill
between two spoons, add a bit of sugar and a drop or two of water to it, and
administer it. “Just a spoon full of sugar makes the medicine go down,” was
what Julie Andrews sang, and that is what we did. I can also remember some
medication I took as a young child that was definitely “yucky”.
“Child-proof”
lids, aluminum foil seals, and “taste good” medications are probably here to
stay. It is not only for the safety of our children, but for our own peace of
mind. But I will still have my opened bottles of OTC medications; just put them
up higher – out of small peoples reach.
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