Expired medicines

some medicines just loose effectiveness some can break down into nasty by products but one would have to research each medicine in turn to find out. Expect to take hours at this research. I wont go near voltarin with a barge pole. Suffice to say my system treats it as fast food. (very fast) but antihistamines definitely work with my hay fever. Now the catch is like you a packet is too big for the tramping first aid kit so I just put one foil strip in. Expiry on the pack isnt copied onto the strip so who knows how old they are? On a side note a while ago I found nerophen in a gel cap rather than a tablet. Those things were magic but got taken off the market for some reason. Now a new product here is just as good called Advil. Ok its 4 times the cost of normal ibprofen tablets but its so quick acting.

I have the same problem. I suspect a lot of medicines will still be fine a while past their useby dates if they have been kept sealed and dry - the manufacturers probably build in a safety factor when deciding the useby date. I also tend to assume that if not they will just be less effective. However I do try to replace stuff before it gets WAY out of date. ie a few months, I wouldn't worry about and would still use it. A few years, and I would biff it. That's just what I do - not based on any scientific evidence.

This is from a unqualified position and should be taken at that.. I believe, after the expiry date medications could be less effective then prior so you would no longer get the recommended dose. It is also possible that it would change into something poisonous or unpleasant, if you read the drugs fact sheet they would mention this possibility but good luck finding a example of toxicity actually occurring..... If you do a online search on the topic, you would find there are quite a few example of tests showing drugs maintaining their potency well past their use by date. So they are probably still safe, and probably still effective but you would not find anyone confirming this. The US army has the " Shelf Life Extension Program database" which I believe tests drug pass their expiry dates to see wither they can be used in emergency use. Most are still potent even years after expiry assuming proper storage.

Disclaimer: I work in a chemistry laboratory and deal with an experiment where students work out how much aspirin is in Asproclear tablets compared to what is written on the side of the packet. A lot of chemicals will break down over time with exposure to air, moisture, light, heat and other factors. Many drug manufacturers, by law, have to state how much of a dose of the active ingredient is in the tablet, but will slightly "spike" this number in order to prolong the shelf life of the medicine. If they say there is 500mg of aspirin for example on the packet then its not uncommon for the actual dose to be more like 550mg, so that as the tablet ages and the aspirin starts to break down the value will still be at or round about 500mg. I'm no pharmacist but it is my opinion that many tablets that are past their Use By date will still work, but you are just getting a lower dose of their active ingredient so won't be as effective. You probably do have to worry about what the ingredient breaks down into though. Simple things like Aspirin and Paracetamol are fine, your body will just metabolise the prdocts out, but I would be more cautious about things like Voltaren which probably contains many active ingredients.