Old medicines

[Moorland Prepper]

Just having a clear out and came acros some old OTC medicines - paracetamol, co-codomal, etc. All general painkillers. They don't have a 'best before' date, but an expiry date. Some are 5 years old.

Will they still work or should I bin them?

[bobble]

Hi Moorland Prepper,
I've read that lot of medicines can last longer than their use by date. Apparently, the expiry dates of medicines/drugs were tested in the USA a few of decades ago.
Some military guy had to sign off on the destruction of "out of date" meds and the value for one year was in the millions of dollars. So he had the meds checked for viability.
I think most meds were ok, but lost some of their strength (need to take 2 tabs instead of 1). But some antibiotics (tetracycline?) and other meds had to be dumped as they deteriorated chemically and became toxic.
If you look for "us military + medicine expiry dates" theres quite a few articles about it. It looks as if expiry dates were put on a lot of meds by the drug companies to get you to 'buy more'.

[Vitamin c]

Hi Moorland Prepper,
I've read that lot of medicines can last longer than their use by date. Apparently, the expiry dates of medicines/drugs were tested in the USA a few of decades ago.
Some military guy had to sign off on the destruction of "out of date" meds and the value for one year was in the millions of dollars. So he had the meds checked for viability.
I think most meds were ok, but lost some of their strength (need to take 2 tabs instead of 1). But some antibiotics (tetracycline?) and other meds had to be dumped as they deteriorated chemically and became toxic.
If you look for "us military + medicine expiry dates" theres quite a few articles about it. It looks as if expiry dates were put on a lot of meds by the drug companies to get you to 'buy more'.

Excellent answer, I agree.

I trained in a gym with a guy who used 9yr old deca and he was fine .

[steptoe]

Just having a clear out and came acros some old OTC medicines - paracetamol, co-codomal, etc. All general painkillers. They don't have a 'best before' date, but an expiry date. Some are 5 years old.

Will they still work or should I bin them?

Don't tell my wife lol this lady has meds from 20 plus years ago and we take them if anything like people say just less effect but in truth we noticed no difference , now bare in mind the wife and i are kept alive by meds lol yup i did tell the doctors once if we were acouple of dogs in the shelter you would do the right thing and put us to sleep but they said not allowed to do that as we always taken them christmas pressies lol ..
But like others have said check it out my friend i nthe states sends me antibiotic gel because you get it so checp there and overthe counter , i love germolene and TCP i am a victor meldrew of TCP .

If in doubt tyr and find a helpful chemist most will tell you what is safe and not our lady explained the dates to us and said it is because in a medical world IE if used in a hospital or such place they have to have working dates on stuff , most use them as a just a rolling stock date system .

Look at food now they are starting to work out now we are all struggling oh we can take dates off stuff , like potatoes a use by date or fresh fruti and veg that is stupid i saw 3 whole boxes of carrots thrown in the bin at sainsburys once i went mad yes a few had little sprouts or a couple of bad ones but come on , eggs again crrack it and see was the old saying , milk sniff and tell , if we need to be told when to do everything are we not just giving in to not using our brains , i try and push mine as much as possible

[Mad Scientist]

If you’ve got any aspirin containing meds bin them because it decomposes to vinegar. Must admit I’ve got stuff knocking around in the back of my medicine cupboard that’s past it’s shelf life on the box by a couple of months but anything that’s really more than a year out get rid of it. It can decompose into other compounds that are nothing like the the original stuff.

[Moorland Prepper]

I’ve just come across some old cough/throat mixture, all OTC. Presumably this will be OK?

[Mad Scientist]

With medicine I must admit I’d rather chuck out old medicine if it’s more than a couple of months past it’s shelf life. If in a SHF scenario there’s little medicine around, we’ll all need reasonably fresh stuff that will last for months. If your stuff is already old it won’t help you. There are some things that may last for ages but things degrade over time. Do u want to wait til you’re I’ll or in pain to realise your old meds don’t work? It’s just my opinion but to be honest my medicine cupboard is kept pretty fresh. Cold/flu meds, painkillers, creams, temporary dental filler, first aid/burn gel. Is anybody going to bang on your door and offer these things? Keep prepping, look after yourselves.