5 dangers of using expired medicines

Medicines are manufactured to remain safe, effective and stable for a specific period. That period is reflected in the expiry date printed on the packaging.

However, it is not unusual for people to keep old medicines at home and use them months or years later when they experience similar symptoms.

Someone may find an old packet of tablets in a drawer, discover a bottle of syrup in a cupboard or keep leftover medicines from a previous illness for future use.

The problem is that an expired medicine is no longer guaranteed to meet the quality standards expected of a medicine within its approved shelf life. The expiry date is therefore important, especially when a person is deciding whether an old medicine is still suitable for use.

In this article , Tribune Online highlights five dangers of using expired medicines.

The most obvious danger of using an expired medicine is that it may not work as intended.

Medicines contain active ingredients that produce their therapeutic effects. Over time, these ingredients can gradually deteriorate.

Once a medicine passes its expiry date, its strength and stability can no longer be assured in the same way as they were before that date.

This means a person may take the correct number of tablets but still fail to receive the expected therapeutic effect.

For someone treating a minor symptom, this may mean continued discomfort. However, the consequences can be more serious when the medicine is being used to manage an important health condition. A person may assume that the medicine has been taken correctly and wait for improvement that does not come.

The illness may then continue without adequate treatment. This is one reason an expired medicine should not be treated as equivalent to a fresh supply simply because the packaging looks intact. The active ingredient may have changed even when there is no obvious difference in the tablet or capsule.

Medicines are made up of chemical substances that can change over time. After the expiry date, the ingredients may begin to break down. The resulting product may no longer have the same chemical composition as the medicine originally manufactured. The importance of this depends on the particular medicine and how it deteriorates.

A medicine that has undergone chemical changes may not behave in the body as expected. Its therapeutic effect may be reduced, while the breakdown products may also affect the quality or safety of the product.

This is different from simply saying that an expired medicine becomes poisonous. Not every expired medicine suddenly becomes toxic. The concern is that its safety and quality are no longer assured once it is beyond its approved shelf life.

The longer a medicine remains unused after its expiry date, the less appropriate it is to assume that it remains unchanged.This is why an old medicine should not be judged only by whether it still looks like the product that was originally purchased.

An expired medicine may result in treatment failure because the person does not receive the expected therapeutic effect. This can be particularly concerning when the medicine is being used for an illness that requires effective treatment rather than temporary relief of symptoms.

For example, a person may have an infection and take an expired medicine expecting the condition to improve. If the medicine does not retain adequate potency, the illness may continue while the person believes treatment has already started.Treatment failure can also encourage unsafe decisions.

A person who does not experience improvement may take additional doses, use the medicine for longer than intended or look for another treatment without understanding why the first one failed. The problem can therefore go beyond the expired medicine itself.

Instead of receiving effective treatment from the beginning, the person may spend additional time trying to manage an illness that has not been adequately treated. In some situations, this can allow a health problem to become more serious before proper medical attention is sought.

The risks associated with expired medicines are not identical for every product. Some medicines are more sensitive to changes in temperature, moisture, light or other environmental conditions. Their quality can be affected when they are exposed to unsuitable conditions, even before the printed expiry date.

This means that an expired medicine that has also been exposed to poor storage conditions may be even less reliable.

For instance, medicines kept for long periods in places exposed to excessive heat or moisture may deteriorate differently from medicines stored according to their recommended conditions. This is especially relevant in environments where medicines may be stored in hot rooms, vehicles, near cooking areas or in places with high humidity.

The expiry date does not mean that every medicine suddenly becomes unsafe at one particular moment. Rather, it marks the end of the period during which the manufacturer can assure its quality, strength and stability under specified storage conditions. Once that period has passed, there is no good reason for a consumer to assume that the medicine remains suitable simply because it has not visibly changed.

Liquid medicines deserve particular attention because their stability can differ from that of solid medicines such as tablets and capsules.

Once a liquid product has been opened, its condition can be affected by factors such as contamination, storage conditions and the length of time it has been in use.

Some liquid medicines may also have specific instructions about how long they should be used after opening or preparation. A bottle that has been sitting in a home medicine cabinet for a long time may therefore present questions that cannot be answered simply by looking at the bottle.

The liquid may appear normal while its quality has changed.There is also a greater opportunity for contamination when a liquid medicine is repeatedly opened and handled.

For this reason, people should be especially cautious about using old bottles of medicine simply because they still have some liquid left inside. A liquid medicine that has passed its expiry date should not be assumed to be safe based on its appearance, smell or taste.

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