Life with Chronic Conditions: Use of Expired Medications

Whether it’s over the counter medications, or prescriptions, they all have expiration dates on them. Does that mean it’s dangerous or not effective to use after the expiration date?

 Understand what the expiration date means:  The expiration date is not the date that the drug stops being effective or potentially becomes toxic. It is a date, required by law, that the manufacturer can guarantee greater than 90% original potency of the medication.

 

Most of what is known about drug expiration dates comes from a study conducted by the Food and Drug Administration at the request of the military. The Shelf Life Extension Program (SLEP).  With a large and expensive stockpile of drugs, the military faced tossing out and replacing its drugs every few years. What they found from the study is 90% of more than 100 drugs, both prescription and over-the-counter, were perfectly good to use even 15 years after the expiration date. ..Medical authorities state if expired medicine is safe to take, even those that expired years ago. A rare exception to this may be tetracycline, but the report on this is controversial among researchers. It's true the effectiveness of a drug may decrease over time, but much of the original potency still remains even a decade after the expiration date. Excluding nitroglycerin, insulin, and liquid antibiotics, most medications are as long-lasting as the ones tested by the military. Placing a medication in a cool place, such as a refrigerator, will help a drug remain potent for many years. Drug Expiration Dates — Do They Mean Anything? 

 

More on  SLEP.  A total of 122 drugs were studied representing 3,005 lots. Based on testing and stability assessment, 88% of the lots were extended at least 1 year beyond their original expiration date for an average extension of 66 months, but the additional stability period was highly variable. Several antibiotics were studied, including ciprofloxacin (mean extension, 55 months), amoxicillin (mean extension, 23 months), and doxycycline (mean extension, 50 months).

 

A study of albuterol found that  almost all lots of albuterol maintained > 90% of product (73%-103%), many years past their expiration date. 

 

Bottom Line: If your medication expired a few years ago,  and it's important that your drug is absolutely 100% effective, you might want to consider buying a new bottle. For questions about drug safety, expiration dates etc. talk to your pharmacist.