What Happens If You Take Medication Past Its Expiration Date?
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The only time I've ever had a bad reaction was when I took those 2-3 year old expired Cyclobenzaprine. Every other time I've taken expired pills it's been fine.
3 weeks ago I had a tooth taken out. It took the dentist 2 full hours to wrestle it out. He had to give me 6 shots of Novocaine because it started wearing off while he was working. I cannot understand how I did not have terrible pain afterward but for some reason I didn't. I took 4 Advil liquigels and was fine.
On the other hand, I had to go to the ER last week with a severe lower back muscle spasm and had to get a really heavy duty muscle relaxer shot, a Toradol shot and some Toradol pills. Of course they don't give you the really good stuff, but thankfully the Toradol did work. I always do save out a few pills for the future.
Doctors/dentists should give you a few days supply of pain meds at least. Most of us are not addicts and should not have to suffer for no reason.
Not to mention pain spikes blood pressure and is just not good for you to endure for no reason.
Around here doctors pretty much don't Rx any form of pain medicine unless its in a controlled setting like the ER or a hospital. Outside that, if OTC pain meds don't work, they refer you to a pain management clinic.
It would depend on the medicine. Used eye drops - no. Probably the same with antibiotics. But I recently took Mucinex two years passed the date and it worked just fine. Same for OTC pain killers like ibuprofen or acetaminophen. I've placed left over prescribed opioids in a wilderness first aid kit and they were (thankfully) still effective years later when needed.
I too have been able to take expired opioids left over from orthopedic surgery and they worked fine. To tell the truth, they were much-needed and it was a good thing I had saved them. Unfortunately, hydrocodone and oxycodone wear off in 4 hours, so it's a stop-gap measure.
I just used up some leftover Aleve LiquiGels that were expired for 12 months. They worked fine.
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