You may expire before your drugs expire! | Health Blog

?Dr Sadler, my nitroglycerin expired May 2012. Can you call me in a new prescription in case my chest pain reoccurs??

Wait a minute, you mean it just expired 5 months ago and you chose not to take it? For ?George? (my patient), let?s do some investigating? why should it NOT be effective?

It turns out that nitroglycerin tablets are very sensitive when exposed to light and that it does indeed have a short shelf life.? In fact, some of the literature recommends disposing of the nitroglycerin tablets 3 -6 months after opening the bottle although industry-posted expiration dates are posted on every bottle and are considered accurate.

But what about other drugs stored in your cabinet?? How many of you maintain expired drugs and continue to use them despite the dust on the shelf? According to the Archives of Internal Medicine Oct 8, 2012 some medications are still potent after 50 years!

In their study, 8 medications between 28-40 years expired were found in original unopened containers.??? A total of 15 active ingredients were found in all the samples.? Most of the medications studied were narcotic pain medications hydrocodone and codeine along with a few sedatives such as butalbital.

Apparently even after decades of storage, 80% of the capsules active ingredients maintained at least 90% of the labeled amounts. ?As it turns out, a level of 90% active ingredient present in a medication meets acceptable potency guidelines for retail sale.

Prior to this study, long term drug stability testing has been underway with the Shelf Life Extension Program, which tests drugs stockpiled (stored) by the military. ?Approximately 80% of 122 ?different drugs stored under ideal environmental conditions ? had their expiration dates extended an average of 5 years with a maximum extension of over 23 years. Very impressive!

While I don?t recommend you stockpile your unused drugs or continue to use expired medication, I would consider an open discussion with your physician before throwing away recently (less than 1 year) expired expensive pain medication.? Regarding medication for anything else especially epilepsy, chest pain, blood clots, etc, I would stick close to complying with the expiration date. Critical drugs intended to maintain your good health need to maintain high activity levels in the blood.

As far as we know, there is only one isolated case of medical complications related to an expired drug. ?And, it happened to be due to an inactive ingredient in one of the expired drugs particular formulation.

Over $300billion is spent on prescription drugs every year in the United States (http://www.imshealth.com/).? If, in time, drug companies are able to extend expiration dates, the Archives of Internal Medicine October 2012 report suggests that significant health care dollars could be saved.? Unfortunately (according to Reuters.com), there is little motivation by drug companies to cooperate, as longer shelf lives would cut into production profits.

According to my local pharmacy, prescription bottles with an expiration date within 3 months will go to ?salvage ?(I imagine that means waste disposal).? It is not unusual for this pharmacy to discard thousands of pills monthly.? It is unfortunate; the pharmacies are prohibited from donating expired medication to local free clinics.

After extensive review of the literature, I told ?George? to immediately refill his nitroglycerin tablets and throw away his old tablets.? But, what about other medications on shelves at home and at work? ?Last summer, we threw away over $100 of expired medications in my medicine cabinet at home.? Go look at your own cabinets and look at the expiration dates. I bet a lot of your drugs are expired. Consider the money savings if we only knew which drugs might have longer shelf-lives!

(Note: Prescription drugs need to be disposed of properly, as this story explains. Watch for a drug-disposal event from a local municpality, or follow this advice from the FDA.)

Source: http://healthblog.dallasnews.com/2012/10/you-may-expire-before-your-drugs-expire.html/

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