Q: Is it okay to use my medications beyond the expiry date?
This may seem like a simple question, but there are many factors to consider. Foremost, a prescriber orders a prescription for a patient for a reason, with specific expectations of what that medication will achieve. The safest thing to do is to take your medication for the prescribed duration of therapy. If the medication's expiry date passes, the best choice is to have the medical condition re-evaluated if signs and symptoms persist or change. Otherwise, you may be treating your symptoms with what you think is the correct medication, but in fact the situation has changed. This poses a risk to your health.
Health Canada regulates the manufacturing and distribution of medications in Canada. A medication's expiration date represents the last date the drug is proven to maintain its labelled potency, purity, and physical characteristics. While medications may not be immediately unsafe past their expiration date, their effectiveness may wane with time and storage conditions.
Proper storage of your medications is important to ensure they remain safe and effective up to their expiry date. Medication should be stored in its original container, or in blister packages prepared by your pharmacy. Some medications have specific storage requirements, such as being refrigerated or protected from light. Your pharmacy team will explain these requirements when you pick up your prescription. Failure to properly store medications may lead to reduced efficacy, even though the medications have not yet expired.
Medication is a chemical, and its quality and stability are affected by many factors in our environment: temperature, humidity, light, moisture, exposure to air, bacteria, and many others. Over time, these factors degrade the composition of the active (i.e. drug) and inactive ingredients that make up the capsule, tablet, or liquid. For this reason, storing your medications in the bathroom or on a window ledge is not the best choice. Instead, store them in a cool, dry place such as a kitchen cabinet. Take care not to keep your medications in a cupboard close to the stove or fridge where they may be exposed to variations in temperature. Even if the bottles are child-proof, it is safest to store medications out of reach of children and pets.
Once the prescribed duration of your medication therapy has passed, it is important to properly dispose of any remaining medication. Do not throw medications into your household garbage or flush them down the toilet. The safest way to dispose of any unused medications is to return them in their original containers to your pharmacy. Your pharmacy team will de-identify your medications to protect your personal health information, and store them safely until they can be sent for incineration. This way, there is minimal impact on soil and water contamination, your personal health information is protected, and the risk of your medication accidentally falling into the wrong hands is reduced.
Be certain to dispose of needles, syringes, other sharps and biohazardous materials in a sharps container. This is to protect yourself and your pharmacy team when you return these used products to the pharmacy. Some people improvise and dispose of sharps in empty milk containers and detergent bottles. This is an unsafe practice because these containers are not labelled as such and may not be treated the same way a sharps container would be. This leaves the unsuspecting handler open to a needle stick injury and all the potential health consequences that go along with that.
Your pharmacist is happy to answer questions about medication expiry dates and proper storage.
Dr. Kevin McLaughlin (PharmD, BScPharm, BSc, ACPR) practices at Kennebecasis Drugs, in Rothesay N.B. His opinions expressed in this column are published for educational and informational purposes only, and are not intended as a diagnosis, treatment or as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.