Without the cost of a dentist: I tell you how to open the lid of a medicine without using your nails and teeth

I will never forget my first attempt to open a bottle of medicine. I was 11 years old and, returning from school, instead of heating up the borscht my mother had prepared, I decided to join the ranks of great chefs. French-style meat was supposed to be the debut dish in my culinary career, so I took a piece of pork out of the freezer, armed myself with a knife and began the main action - slicing. As expected, the blade immediately slid off the icy surface and passed over my finger.

It’s good that I learned the basics of first aid for cuts well. It took me about 15 seconds to fish out a bottle with a blue label and the coveted inscription “Hydrogen Peroxide” from the home medicine cabinet. And the real torment began later, when it turned out that it was tightly closed with a plastic cap.

All attempts to pick it up with a fingernail were in vain, so another tool was instinctively used - teeth. The enamel grinded disgustingly, touching the glass neck of the bottle, but the plug still did not give in. In the end, I still managed to pull it out with a knife, but everything took about 10 minutes.

Now, of course, I spend much less time opening medicine containers. And I don't have to risk the integrity of my nails or the health of my teeth to get to the contents.Therefore, I decided to share with you a few life hacks on how to properly open vials, jars, bottles and tubes with various medications.

How to remove a lid with a tear-off ring?

Many tablets are sold not in the usual plates, but in white or colored plastic jars. To ensure that buyers were sure that no one had opened the jar before them, manufacturers came up with the idea of ​​securing the lid with a special “fuse” - a tear-off ring. It's just difficult to tear it off by hand.

I usually help myself with nail scissors - I cut the first few plastic lines connecting the lid and the ring. When the tongue becomes longer, you can grab it and tear off the ring.

Advice! If you don’t have scissors, you can carefully cut the strokes with a knife—a kitchen knife with a thin blade or a stationery knife.

How to quickly remove a cork from a bottle?

A plug that sits too tightly in the neck is found in many medicines - I came across one in bottles with iodine and brilliant green, with tinctures of hawthorn and motherwort, and with the already mentioned hydrogen peroxide. It is no less difficult to uncork bottles with liquid vitamins A and E (try to buy those with a so-called “dropper” instead of a solid stopper) and almost all pharmaceutical oils in small glass bottles.

In my experience, the easiest way to remove this plug is to use regular office scissors:

1. Hold them in your hand as you would to cut something.
2. Open the blades and place them between the stopper and the neck of the bottle.
3. Slowly close the blades until they fit under the cap of the cork.
4. Pull out the plug using rocking movements of your hand.

The main thing is not to rush or make sudden movements, otherwise there is a risk of damaging the thin material of the cork and making it unsuitable for further use.

How to easily open a container with a metal lid?

I haven't had to open containers like this very often. As a rule, these were vials of sodium chloride - in medicine, this substance is used as a solvent and diluent when administering droppers or injections. But it is also excellent for washing wounds from dirt and acts as an artificial tear if a speck gets into the eye or another misfortune occurs. In general, you should always have it on hand and be able to quickly open the package.

Bottles of this type always have three caps: the top plastic cap, which can be removed with one movement of the hand, the middle metal cap, which fits tightly around the neck, and the bottom cap, a sealed rubber stopper. Many people think that dealing with a metal lid is not easy and requires special cutting tools. In fact, this is not so - although the metal seems very hard, in fact it is easily cut through with office scissors.

To remove this “snap”, follow a few simple steps:

1. Insert the closed blades under the lid through the hole in the center.
2. Press down on the scissors so that they pierce the side of the metal. After this, the lid will easily come off the neck.

In this way, you can remove the cap not only from saline solution, but also from other drugs, including those packaged in small bottles. Just don't use a knife instead of scissors - if it comes off, you can be seriously injured.

I hope you never need these lifehacks, but now you know how to quickly remove the cap from a medicine in an emergency and won’t risk your nails and teeth by opening the bottle.