Consuming expired medicine is extremely harmful to the body
Published Time:
2016-06-14
Real-life example
On a day in early July this year, Mr. Lin was rushed to the emergency room of a large hospital in the city by his family at around 1 a.m. When he left home, Mr. Lin was still conscious, but he had gone into shock by the time he arrived at the hospital. His family told the doctor that Mr. Lin had been experiencing headaches and fever since two days prior. Thinking it was just a minor cold, he decided to treat it at home with some medicine and didn't plan to go to the hospital. However, about half an hour after taking the medicine, Mr. Lin started sweating profusely. He initially thought it was a normal reaction to the medicine lowering his fever and didn't pay much attention. It wasn't until he was about to go to sleep that he suddenly experienced nausea, vomiting, and continued headaches and dizziness. The whole family panicked and quickly sent the pale-faced Mr. Lin to the hospital.
The doctor examined Mr. Lin's eyes and asked, "What medicine did he take?" Mr. Lin's family produced the remaining medicine. The doctor carefully examined it and pointed to one of the oral liquids, saying, "Why didn't you check the label? This medicine expired a year ago. Fortunately, you brought the medicine with you; otherwise, our rescue efforts would have been misguided."
With the increase in people's self-care awareness and health knowledge, especially with the implementation of the non-prescription drug classification management system, more and more families have established "small medicine cabinets." However, a lack of management awareness of the home medicine cabinet can harm human health and even lead to tragedy.
The medicines in a home medicine cabinet can be roughly divided into two categories based on storage purpose and time: long-term reserve medicines and temporarily stored medicines.
Long-term reserve medicines are for occasional use during minor illnesses, intended for all family members, and mainly consist of over-the-counter drugs. For example, pain relievers, motion sickness medicine, and heatstroke prevention medicine. The emphasis varies depending on the family's situation; external anti-inflammatory drugs are also essential in many home medicine cabinets.
Temporarily stored medicines are generally medicines obtained during medical treatment for a specific illness, including some long-term medications such as hypoglycemic drugs. They are highly targeted and time-sensitive; once the treatment is over, they are no longer needed, and the medicine cabinet serves only as a temporary storage place.
"All medicines should be strictly managed and taken according to their expiration dates, regardless of whether they are prescription or non-prescription drugs." The expert told us, "Therefore, identifying the expiration date of medicines is very important. Almost all medicines currently indicate an expiration date, which is the period within which the quality of the drug is guaranteed under the specified storage conditions. If the conditions are not met, the period is correspondingly shortened. Due to different regulations from different manufacturers, the labeling of the expiration date and expiry date is different, and the calculation is also different."
There are three common situations:
One is indicating the expiration date, such as "Expiration date: October 2008." The medicine can be used until October 31, 2008. It expires on November 1 and cannot be used.
Two is indicating the expiry date. If it says "Expiry date: October 2008," then the medicine can only be used until September 30, 2008. It expires on October 1 and cannot be used.
Three is indicating the expiration date. If it says "Production date: October 2007, expiration date: 3 years," then the medicine can only be used until September 30, 2010.
According to regulations, imported medicines should also be labeled with Chinese annotations, generally using the Gregorian calendar, which is consistent with our daily habits. If you have any questions, be sure to consult a pharmacist.
To ensure that medicines are genuine and effective within their expiration date, storage must ensure proper storage conditions. First, pay attention to the storage conditions of the medicine and avoid high temperatures, light, and humidity. Many medicine instructions include "seal, store in a cool place." Sealing means isolating the air to prevent oxidation of the medicine and to prevent the entry of humid air, causing deliquescence of the drug. A cool place refers to an environment below 20℃. If it says "cold place," it should be in an environment of 2℃～10℃; the refrigerator's cold storage room generally meets the requirements. However, lower temperatures are not always better; many liquid preparations should not be frozen, and some self-injected liquids like insulin should not be frozen. Deterioration of medicines is irreversible. For example, biological products mostly require refrigeration. If they are stored at high temperatures for a period of time and then refrigerated, the previous loss cannot be compensated. Therefore, the storage conditions of medicines should remain consistent.
Medicines should also be properly categorized and arranged. External and internal medicines should be stored separately to avoid accidental misplacement in a hurry. At the very least, they should be placed in different colored bags in the medicine cabinet and clearly labeled. Do not use empty medicine bottles or boxes to store other medicines; forgetting this can easily lead to errors and misuse.
Once medicines expire or deteriorate, they should be completely destroyed to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands. The best way is to return expired or deteriorated medicines to the hospital pharmacy for centralized disposal to avoid environmental pollution, especially for medicines with special properties, such as penicillin. If handled improperly or released into the air, it may cause allergic reactions.
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