One of the things on the Preponomicon that I am trying to get into the green is some OTC medications. Presumably, these things are going to sit on a shelf for, at least, several years. Does aspirin turn into some sort of toxic acid a few years after its ‘Best By’ date?
The answer, it seems, is ” a usefully long time”. But, honestly, this is one of those times where I’m probably going to disregard the common advice, as well as the small financial hit, and simply throw out and replace my 500-tablet bottle of ibuprofin every five years.
Hunter S. Thompson’s Continental breakfast
However, up until a few years ago I was still using a gigantic bottle of Advil that I’d bought at CostCo with an ‘Expiration date’ in 1997. Made my headaches go away just fine.
TL,DR: your Tylenol, Advil, and aspirin are GTG for about 5 years.
ETA: I was sent this in email:
The military did a study back in the 80’s examining the bioactivity of stored drugs… And found that almost all of them were good to go years after their expiration dates. These are drugs that were stored in climate controlled warehouses, in original factory packaging.
ProTip: Don’t buy one big bottle of a drug, buy lots of little ones… Drugs are hermetically sealed at the factory, and once you open them and start shaking things out, moisture gets in and starts degrading the drug. Not to mention whatever you may introduce with your finger..
For drug storage, put the unopened drugs in a refrigerator – don’t freeze them. Why keep them cool? In general (rule of thumb time) for every 10-degree C reduction in temperature a chemical process (like a drug, degrading) experiences, the rate of the process reduces by 1/2. So, your drugs will last about 4 times longer in the refrigerator at 2-c, then at room temperature at 22-c.
Why not freeze them? Because they may degrade (especially liquid or ointment products) and separate (the various components freeze at different temperatures). When they thaw, they melt at different temps too, and don’t reconstitute. This is ESPECIALLY important for drugs like insulin, a protein: Freezing the protein breaks it apart, and then it is done. No longer useful… So, cold: Not frozen.
The military did a study back in the 80’s examining the bioactivity of stored drugs… And found that almost all of them were good to go years after their expiration dates. These are drugs that were stored in climate controlled warehouses, in original factory packaging.
Disclaimer: I am a physician. I am NOT your physician. This is not medical advice.
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-myth-of-drug-expiration-dates
I have seen triple antibiotic ointment stop working. In my experience, some of the store brands will stop working soon (months) after their expiration date while name brands will still work a year or 2 afterwards.
I suspect, but do not know, that storage makes a difference – this is likely a time when cool consistent storage temperatures will extend shelf life.
Thanks for the information! I had no clue that it expired. I checked mine & 2 opened tubes expired 3 years ago & 1 still in the box expired 6 1/2 years ago! I must have misplaced it somewhere.
Since it’s obvious now that we don’t use a lot of it, I’m tossing these and getting just 1 fresh tube.
Good to know, thanks. I’ve been using triple antibiotic cream with a 2010 expiration date. Seems to work ok, no infections where I’ve used it. Still… did go out and buy all new tubes and tossed the old ones after reading this.
Any data on:
1) Freezing medications to extend storage life?
2) Vacuum-sealing the (vented) containers and/or storing them in a nitrogen environment?
Some years back someone, IIRC, in or associated to the military in some way, did a study on effectiveness of “officially expired” meds and found that the actual loss-of-effectiveness date was well beyond the expiration date printed on the bottle. How far beyond depended on the particular medication and storage mode, but it indicated a time-based decline rather than instantaneous worthlessness.
Seems not unlike the “best if used by date” on canned foods (although, some canned foods, particularly acidic foods (ex: tomatoes and tomato products and citrus) and fruit (which, unlike meats and vegetables, is canned uncooked) have “don’t use” dates not too long after their sell-by dates.
Actually the only food that required by law to have expiration date is..BABY FOOD.
The others are for inventory control and rotation and are not required by law.
A vitamin is guaranteed to be 100% effective up to it’s rotation date…yet may remain at 98% effective 5 years after that date…FYI
A drug’s expiration date is that date where the drug loses ten percent of it’s potency half of the time.
Other times, it is because that drug has a risk of some other failure. For example, some pills like the dissolving Immodium AD pills will crumble into dust soon after the expiration date, especially in a humid environment (think: the Gulf Coast, or perhaps the Seattle area).
I had a rather large bottle of aspirin stashed in my deployment bag for over 10 years. I had to get rid of it after the plastic bottle was busted and cracked. The other primary issue was the storage of my bag. Thrown in a corner and brought out to look at about once in a while. The aspirin had been pulverized from the different exotic locations I got to see. I guess they still worked, but after the powder infiltrated the rest of my bag…..it was time to replace it.
Big Pharma wants to sell stuff so they may fudge the date to the early phase to boost sales. My BIL the pharmacist (large university hospital) says most are good years past the date but antibiotics should be tossed when expired. As cheap as aspirin and other OTC meds are the risk/reward ratio isn’t that high for me to keep much past the expiration date.
Fun fact: As a commercial driver, if one has expired antibiotic ointment in the first aid kit it’s a $250 fine to the driver, not the company.
Fire Extinguishers and triangles are required,first aid kits are not(except on buses). No reason for anyone to be looking at it,much less issuing any ticket. 30+ years driving,never go anywhere without your “green book”
I loved the line under the photo “Hunter S. Thompson’s Continental breakfast” so having time on my hands I looked up what he did eat.
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2011/08/hunter-s-thompsons-preferred-breakfast-eggs-sausage-cocaine/354255/
As aspirin degrades, it acquires a vinegar smell. It gradually becomes less effective but not dangerous. https://www.acsh.org/news/2018/09/30/when-aspirin-goes-bad-it-bad-13459
One med that can be frozen is hydrogen peroxide. Unopened, at room temperature, it’s good for 3 years. I’m not sure how much longer freezing makes it last.
I use it, diluted with water 50/50, for mouthwash.
I’m not a pharmacist, but I know a fair bit of pharmacology and I’ve looked for answers to the above questions for a long time now. As already stated here, most drugs, maintained sealed and cool will be good for years beyond any date Big Pharma lawyers want.
Most chemical degradation simply means they get weaker and less effective. There are exceptions. I’ve read many different places that complexes like Neosporin become ineffective in fairly short order. Simple chemicals like aspirin, properly stored should be good for years. I have read that there are a few that have toxic degradation products. Tetracycline is one that becomes poisonous over the long term, so the general statement above about not trusting antibiotics is probably wise.
I’ve pulled a first aid kit from under a car seat where it’s been years since it was opened. The latex gloves were crumbled to powder. Bandaids had no adhesive left, and I’ve opted not to trust any medication in it. I do need to go through stored preps and throw out and replace anything suspect.
Good info
For us survivalists, you might consider this approach to a drug safety and or effectiness issues this way.
1. Are drug supplies are available, i.e. Commercial available via Walgreens etc.
A. Generally safe and effective well past expiation dates with exceptions of Meds in Solution, see references below as an aid to safety or effectiveness on different meds. Effective Easily 5 yrs, replace at your discretion.
2. Society has collapsed, i.e. drugs are not available.
A. Rules are widely expanded on most meds and kept. Use carefully. See references below. Your miles should vary.
Storage. For survival meds, recommend maintaining Sealed in a food grade bucket, inside Unopened original drug packaging, Not stored in a bathroom, i.e. High humidity from showers.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/drug-expiration-dates-do-they-mean-anything
https://www.drugs.com/article/drug-expiration-dates.html
How long do they work?
Stored cool and dry(<60° F.): Decades, plural, with minimal loss of effectiveness. The military tests were not of drugs “in a climate-controlled warehouse”, but rather of Civil Defense stocks stored in an ordinary warehouse since the 1950s, in the 1980s. 30 years later, almost every drug was found to be at or above 90% potency. A couple early generation antibiotics had degraded to ineffectiveness, but those formulations are not even manufactured nor prescribed any more.
If you have a bottle in you medicine cabinet, unless you live at the equator, as long as the pills look like intact pills, they’ll work just fine.
(Gelcaps, OTOH, are designed to self-destruct anywhere, relatively quickly, which is why people are foolish if they buy them in the first place. Get ordinary tablet forms.)
Stored in a hot car: A year, if you’re lucky.
Neosporin and H2O2: six months after opening, and a year opened or not, unless kept in a refrigerator. (There’s a reason H2O2 is in a brown bottle: light and heat speed up chemical degradation from H2O2 into plain old H2O.) But if the bottle is sealed, it’s still clean water.
You could look it up. 😉
Act accordingly.
Most expiration dates are as scientifically necessary as the legendary instructions on Head & Shoulders Shampoo: Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
Scientifically proven to get you to use more product, and thus buy more product, if followed.
The product cannot tell time, and Tylenol and Motrin don’t magically turn into dust a month or even a year after the date stamped on the bottle.
Bear well in mind those dates are stamped onto pill bottles by the same companies that told you for thirty-forty years how healthy cigarette smoking was for you.
Stop listening to the Mad Men. They do not have your best interest in mind, only focusing on how they may induce you to part with more of your cash to buy more of their products.
Nothing else.
Not even as a distant second place intent.
Ever.
In the early 80’s when I started working as a paramedic, our medications in the drug box typically had between about 5 to 7 and sometime as much as 10 years before they expired. Every shift required inspection of every drug in the box and again before you administered it to a patient. Those same medications now have less than a year.
Just today I took some Kirkland brand ibuprofen liquid caps from my medicine cabinet for a headache which worked just fine. I just looked and noticed that it expired in May 2013. I had some canned tuna the other day with a best use by date of 2011. It smelled okay and the cat had no problem drinking the water from the can. It tasted fine.
Not to oversimplify things, but, and this is my 2 cents worth: Generally speaking, I’d rather have expired medication than no medication at all. But that’s just me. I’ve been know to use powedered creamer, mustard, aspirin, etc. with a 10 year expiration… Carry on.