What Happens If You Take Medication Past Its Expiration Date? (blood pressure, surgery)
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The Shelf-Life Extension Program (SLEP), is a program run by the US Department of Defense to test the stability of drugs stored in military stockpiles. The SLEP has been testing drugs for almost 40 years, and has found that many drugs retain their safety and potency for decades beyond their labeled expiration dates.
For example, one study by the SLEP found that 12 of 14 medications tested retained full potency for at least 336 months, or 28 years. Of those 12, eight retained full potency for at least 480 months, or 40 years. Only aspirin and amphetamine were present in amounts of less than 90 percent of labeled content.
Another study by the SLEP found that 88 percent of 122 different drugs stored under ideal environmental conditions had their expiration dates extended more than one year, with an average extension of 66 months and a maximum extension of 278 months.
The SLEP has found that taking expired tetracycline can cause a condition called Fanconi syndrome. Fanconi syndrome is a type of kidney damage that can lead to a variety of health problems, including dehydration, electrolyte imbalances, and bone problems. Tetracycline is the only antibiotic that the SLEP has specifically stated should not be used past the expiration date. However, it is important to note that the SLEP has not tested all antibiotics, so it is possible that there are other antibiotics that should not be used past the expiration date.
These studies suggest that many drugs may be safe and effective to use long after their labeled expiration dates. However, it is important to note that these studies were conducted on drugs stored under ideal conditions. It is not clear how long drugs will retain their potency if they are stored in unfavorable conditions, such as in high temperatures or humidity.
Other drugs like drops or emulsions (liquids, gels etc) shouldn't be used past the expiration date even if unopened because they contain so many ingredients it would be impossible to determine if they are safe even if the efficacy of the active ingredient was established.
I worked in a government storehouse that included antibiotics. Once every few few years we got stickers to extend the expiration dates on them. I was just a peon so I don't know what happened in the background to extend the expiration dates but buying stickers was undoubtedly cheaper than disposing of the drugs and replacing them.
Here's an interesting article and quote: https://www.propublica.org/article/t...piration-dates "Some that failed to hold their potency include the common asthma inhalant albuterol, the topical rash spray diphenhydramine, and a local anesthetic made from lidocaine and epinephrine, the study said. But neither Cantrell nor Dr. Cathleen Clancy, associate medical director of National Capital Poison Center, a nonprofit organization affiliated with the George Washington University Medical Center, had heard of anyone being harmed by any expired drugs. Cantrell says there has been no recorded instance of such harm in medical literature."
It's also important to note that in most of the world, drugs aren't routinely discarded because of expiration dates for economic reasons.
So do I take expired medications? If it looks and smells okay, all the time. I rarely take any type of medication so I don't make my way through them. Of the few medications I do occasionally take, I would say probably most of them are WAY past the expiration date.
The doc's don't prescribe painkillers, so people hoard them now when they do get them for something short term like a tooth extraction, and take them years after expiration dates and they still work. It's a shame we are forced into keeping them so long.
As a pharmacist, I have to agree with the article. And really do in most cases
IMHO, the exp date that is on your Rx label is always 1 year after date dispensed. When working in pharmacies, (very busy stores) the exp date on manufacturer's expiration dates was almost always, at least, a year beyond that.
That said,
I have meds on hand that we have used in the past.that are well beyond 1 year past exp dates.
Never save antibiotics, they should have been all taken when you received original Rx for treatment.
Never use expired eye drops, or eye drops that have been opened and used (Throw all open and used eye drops out every 90-120 days because of possible bacterial contamination
Never use expired drugs for critical issues like heart meds, etc
I save non aspirin containing pain meds (you can use the smell test on aspirin (open bottle and smell, if there is a vinegarish odor, discard
I save muscle relaxants and a few other non critical meds
Interesting about the muscle relaxants. I have a prescription that's 4 years old for cyclobenzaprine, the generic for Flexeril. Last week I had a really bad incident with my lower back and I considered taking one of them. Then I remembered that about 2 years ago I took one of them and got a stomach ache so I threw them out and headed to the doctor for another prescription. The time I got the stomach ache was about 2 years after the original prescription had been dispensed.
I used to work for a woman who kept stuff long past usefulness. Her entire garage was converted into a closet to store every garment she had owned in 40 years.
I cleaned out her bathroom cabinet once, and she got mad at me for throwing out a half tube of her kid's skin ointment that had been expired for 20 years. Even if it still had some efficacy, it had not been needed in all that time, and the person it belonged to lived a thousand miles away.
Since a big part of my job was finding places to store all the new stuff she constantly bought but never used, I learned to take out the trash when she wasn't looking.
If they don't know it's even missing, it won't even bother them. I'm the opposite. I'll go through my place once a month and see what I might not need that can get thrown away. On the other hand, if I see clothing on sale I'll eventually use, like the $5 jeans I bought today, I'll buy em.
I'm hard on my clothing. Oxygen and sunlight are hard on everything in time. Eventually, everything needs to be replaced due to entropy.
The doc's don't prescribe painkillers, so people hoard them now when they do get them for something short term like a tooth extraction, and take them years after expiration dates and they still work. It's a shame we are forced into keeping them so long.
Yup, after my dentist took an hour to wrestle a molar out of my mouth and refused to give me any painkillers I went home and took some 10 year old pills. Thanks doc. Thanks lawyers. Thanks overreacting loved ones of addicts.
Interesting about the muscle relaxants. I have a prescription that's 4 years old for cyclobenzaprine, the generic for Flexeril. Last week I had a really bad incident with my lower back and I considered taking one of them. Then I remembered that about 2 years ago I took one of them and got a stomach ache so I threw them out and headed to the doctor for another prescription. The time I got the stomach ache was about 2 years after the original prescription had been dispensed.
I have Flexiril that is older than that and have never gotten a stomach ache from it. That's a normal side effect for some people though.
The doc's don't prescribe painkillers, so people hoard them now when they do get them for something short term like a tooth extraction, and take them years after expiration dates and they still work. It's a shame we are forced into keeping them so long.
Yep. You can have my outdated pain pills when you pry them from my cold dead hands. Let's just say I have experienced a dying tooth on a long weekend.
I made the mistake once, when I had some bad knee pain, of telling the physician's assistant, "The pain is so bad I have to take a Vicodin to get to sleep."
"Where did you get Vicodin???!!!" he asked, like I had admitted to taking heroin. Now I would just say "I had to take 4 ibuprofen...."
Yup, after my dentist took an hour to wrestle a molar out of my mouth and refused to give me any painkillers I went home and took some 10 year old pills. Thanks doc. Thanks lawyers. Thanks overreacting loved ones of addicts.
Whoa!!! Hopefully your dentist at least gave you enough novocaine ( or whatever they use for numbing the area) while he/she was wrestling with your molar and its long roots to at least minimize the stars you saw during the extraction. Sounds a bit brutal not to even prescribe a couple of painkiller pills for you.
Hopefully the 10 yr old pills helped some.
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I'm the opposite. I'll go through my place once a month and see what I might not need that can get thrown away. On the other hand, if I see clothing on sale I'll eventually use, like the $5 jeans I bought today, I'll buy em. 
