How Dangerous Is It To Take Expired Medications?

Imagine you’ve woken up with an absolute stinker of a cold. You’ve got a stuffy nose, thumping headache, all your limbs hurt – but the only medication in the house is a pack of cold and flu pills that are way, way, out of date. Should you take them? Or will that do more harm than good?

The advice from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is simple: “If your medicine has expired, do not use it.”

“Once the expiration date has passed there is no guarantee that the medicine will be safe and effective,” the agency says.

That’s not to say that if you accidentally take something like an expired paracetamol, you should start writing a will in your Notes app.

“Very few medications become toxic when they are past their expiration date,” University Hospitals pharmacist Dr James Reissig explained to The Science of Health. “Most simply lose effectiveness over time due to changes in chemical composition.”

That’s not a green light to use medications that have been sitting in the cabinet since the first season of Stranger Things came out. There’s still risk involved, and that means that it isn’t really worth it.

“Certain expired medications are at risk of bacterial growth and sub-potent antibiotics can fail to treat infections, leading to more serious illnesses and antibiotic resistance,” the FDA explains.

Antibiotic resistance isn’t to be taken lightly; an estimated 1.27 million people were directly killed by antibiotic-resistant infections in 2019.

For medications that require a precise dosage, the lack of effectiveness past a certain point also means there’s a risk of some serious health consequences. Insulin, for example, shouldn’t be used past the expiration date; it’s not as effective at controlling blood glucose levels, meaning there’s an increased risk of hyperglycemia.

Epinephrine pens also shouldn’t be used past the expiration date, but exceptions might be made during an emergency situation like anaphylaxis. Then, it may be better than not using anything at all. 

In general though, it’s best to steer clear of expired medication. “The expiration date is there for your protection,” Dr Simon Hodes told Health Essentials.

So what do you do if you’ve got a cupboard full of medication you can no longer use? There are some medications where it’s acceptable to flush them down the toilet, but for most, the FDA recommends that the best course of action is to drop them off at a drug take-back location, or use prepaid drug mail-back envelopes – these can be picked up at places like pharmacies.

All “explainer” articles are confirmed by fact checkers to be correct at time of publishing. Text, images, and links may be edited, removed, or added to at a later date to keep information current.

The content of this article is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of qualified health providers with questions you may have regarding medical conditions. 

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