Some people find it hard to throw out the medicine they've bought, thinking that they could still use it even after it has expired. But the question is whether it is really safe to take, for example, expired over-the-counter painkillers for a headache?
Fox News Health posted this question by one of their viewers, asking about what really happens after the expiration date, and whether it was safe to still take the medicine months or years after expiration. Dr. Manny Alvarez explained that the expiration date is actually placed there by the manufacturer.
It is their way of guaranteeing until when the drug is potent. Dr. Alvarez further elaborates that a study by the Food and Drug Administration actually resulted to 90% of around 100 drugs tested could still be taken 15 years after its expiration date.
But if this is the case, then why are the expiration dates important? 12 News shares that it is advisable not to take the medicine, not because it is dangerous after the expiration date, but because the effectiveness of it is no longer guaranteed.
Pharmacist Mike Fossler from the American College of Clinical Pharmacology says that the general rule is that once a drug is "degraded by 10% it has reached the end of its useful life." There's no way to tell when that will happen, so the taking expired medicine may not harm you, but it may not relieve the pain or heal whatever needs to be healed in your body.
This is true for those taking antibiotics because if a patient takes medicines which are not potent, they can do more than good. What can happen is what is called antibiotic resistance, where the bacteria your body is trying to kill is able to resist not just the drug you took that was not potent enough, but other medicines you might be taking as well.
