Home Medicine Cabinet: 6 to Keep, 5 to Ban

Keep 6 categories, ban 5, and audit the box every 6 months. A cat medicine cabinet is an inventory problem, not a small pharmacy: the useful version holds a few vet-prescribed items in original packaging, and nothing that was bought for a human.

Every drug in it arrives on a vet prescription, and no one at home decides a dose. What you control is which category sits on which shelf, at what temperature, and whether the box gets checked in month 6 or in year 3.

Six categories that earn shelf space

Each one has a job that a 24-hour clinic cannot do at 2 a.m.: hold a prescription steady, stop a flea cycle, or keep a wound covered until morning.

Category	Why it is there	Storage	Re-check
Vet-prescribed oral medicine	an unfinished course, in the original box	below 25°C, dark	6 months
Flea and tick prevention	matched to the cat's current weight	15-25°C, sealed	6 months
Ear and eye cleaning solution	non-medicated, for routine cleaning only	15-25°C	6 months
Skin cleanser for wounds	vet-approved, for the first dressing	15-25°C, not the bathroom	3 months after opening
Back-up dressing supplies	gauze and tape for the second change	dry, under 60% humidity	6 months
Gut support the vet recommends	for stress diarrhoea and appetite dips	2-8°C if the label says so	6 months

Six is the ceiling, not a starting point. A cabinet with 6 labelled categories is used; a cabinet with 20 unlabelled boxes is a place where things expire quietly.

Five things that must never be stored

These 5 are not about caution, they are about a cat's liver. Cats lack the enzyme pathway that clears many human drugs, so a normal adult tablet can be a lethal dose, and the margin is not something to estimate at home.

Human painkillers: ibuprofen, naproxen and aspirin all damage a cat's kidneys or gut lining at tablet scale.
Human cold and sinus products: acetaminophen and pseudoephedrine are two of the most common poisonings in cats.
Dog flea drops with permethrin: a product sold for a 20 kg dog can kill a 4 kg cat within hours through tremors and seizures.
Mothballs, naphthalene and strong essential oils: tea tree and eucalyptus included, absorbed through skin and grooming.
Expired or unlabelled antibiotics: no course completion, no diagnosis, and 100% of the risk stays with the cat.

The rule is simple to apply: if the box was not prescribed for this cat, this year, it does not live in the cabinet. Not in the kitchen drawer either, which is where most of these 5 actually end up.

Three physical rules that decide safety

A latch, a height, and a door. Put the box above 1.5 m behind a latch or a child lock, in a room that stays under 25°C, and keep it out of the bathroom where humidity runs 70 to 90%.

The third rule is distance from the kitchen. Steam, heat and grease from a hob push a shelf to 30 to 35°C, and a cabinet next to the oven is a cabinet that quietly cooks its contents for 6 months.

The 6-month audit: 30 minutes, 3 piles

Set month 0, 6 and 12. Empty the box, wipe it, and sort everything into keep, replace this week, and discard today. Anything with 3 months or less on the label belongs in the replace pile, not back in the box.

Write the audit date on the lid in marker. Two dates on a lid is a full history of the cabinet, and it takes 10 seconds to read.

Four fields on every label

Name, date opened, prescribing vet with clinic phone, and the cat's weight in kg on the day it was prescribed. The weight field matters because a cat that gains or loses 0.5 kg has changed category for some products, and the vet needs that number, not a guess.

If the original label is gone, the item is not stock, it is clutter. Twelve months of unlabelled leftovers is the most common finding in a home audit, and it is also the most common source of a wrong item being picked up in the dark.

Where the cabinet must not be

Not the bathroom (humidity 70 to 90%, temperature swings 5 to 8°C per shower), not above the hob, not the garage (35 to 45°C in summer), and not the car. A hallway cupboard at 20 to 24°C with a latch is the whole specification.

Keep it reachable in under 30 seconds without moving furniture, because the moments that matter are the ones where you are already holding a cat.

When the cabinet is not the answer

A wound that is 2 cm long, a bite puncture, or a cat that has not eaten in 24 hours is a clinic problem, not a shelf problem. The home steps for a cut are covered in wound care at home, and the supplies and technique for subcutaneous fluids only apply when a vet has already set the plan.

Budget matters too: a realistic cabinet runs 200 to 400 RMB a year, and the cost calculator shows where that sits against food and litter.

Five steps for this weekend

Empty the box and discard every unlabelled or expired item, no exceptions.
Sort what is left into the 6 categories and write 4 fields on each label.
Move the box above 1.5 m, behind a latch, in a room under 25°C.
Photograph the labels and store the photos on your phone.
Set the next audit for month 6 and write it on the lid.

Frequently asked

Can I keep leftover antibiotics in case the same thing happens again?

No. An unfinished or expired course cannot be reused, the diagnosis may be different, and the risk sits entirely with the cat. Leftovers go to a pharmacy take-back point, and the next course comes from a fresh prescription after an exam.

Is a locked cupboard really necessary if my cat cannot open doors?

Yes, because the failure is human, not feline. A dropped bottle, a lid left off for 10 minutes, or a visiting child is the usual route, and a latch above 1.5 m removes all three at once for a few RMB.

How do I know which category an item belongs to?

Read the label, not the box colour. If it is prescribed for this cat and this condition it is category 1, if it is prevention it is category 2, and if nobody can say what it is for, it is not stock and it leaves the cabinet.