I found a couple of pills in an old suitcase of ours and am wondering what they are. They are oval, peach/yellow, and say 40 in black on one side. I looked online and can’t find anything that looks like them so far.
Pharmacies will accept these for disposal, correct?
You could try this site to figure it out. But if you’re not all that concerned, just toss them in the garbage (that’s all the pharmacist is going to do).
Yes, pharmacies would be happy to dispose of them properly for you, keeping them out of our waterways. Especially if you don’t know what it is, it’s best not to put it in the trash or to flush it.
Is there anything on the other side? There are some neat online pill identifier programs, but I’m not coming up with an exact match from that description. Wanna try it yourself?
This is what I thought (most likely after reading similar advice here on the boards) and took some to my local pharmacy. I was told they could not accept them and that I should mix them into something like coffee grounds and throw them in the trash.
Where do you live, if you don’t mind me asking? Here (Chicagoland),I haven’t found a pharmacy that won’t take old meds, although I grant you that I have no idea if they *actually *dispose of them in a superior manner.
Yes, this is why I’d rather the pharmacy dispose of it. Flushing or tossing in the trash is not a great idea (especially flushing).
No, I’ve never been prescribed Protonix or Oxycodone. I almost wonder if it isn’t something I picked up on one of our trips to South and Central America.
Tossing it in the trash is exactly what the FDA recommends for most drugs. Crush it up a little and put it in with kitty litter or coffee grounds and throw it away, unless the drug label says otherwise.
My pharmacy wouldn’t take back meds for disposal, and we actually printed the FDA page and would let people look it over when they’d argue.
I don’t think there’s a single “heavy duty oxycodone” pill (yeah yeah, there’s oxycontin, but that’s not what the post said) that are going to be more potent then taking a couple of ‘regular’ Percocets or Vicodins at once, which I’ve done on countless occasions in my life. A single oxycodone (or a few) really aren’t scary. Though I’ve never taken a morphine pill.
But still, I wouldn’t take an unidentified pill. Did you take a look at the Pill ID websites?
Yeah, I did look through the sites and found nothing that resembles it. The only possibility is that perhaps Canadian pills are marked differently then US for some reason, and the US pill look up sites don’t contain all the Canadian pills.
(Sorry I didn’t mention where I was from in the OP, I just realized it might make a difference!)
Oxycontin is oxycodone. It comes in 80mg pills, which aren’t meant for acute pain control, but chronic pain in people who have been on opioids for a long time. A single one in an opiate-naive person could cause respiratory arrest.
Y’know, if these were oxycodone, which they aren’t. But there are plenty of drugs that could seriously injure you with just a single dose. And there are even more street drugs of dubious origin that look like pharmaceutical drugs (pill molds and capsule machines are cheap) that could seriously mess you up.
Oh! Wait a sec…(runs to the cabinet)…Rosouvastatin, or Crestor, 40mg? Except, as you say, the 40 on yours is in black. Hmmm… Fake Crestor? Crestor doesn’t have a generic equivalent yet (or does it? I’m not sure, but the VA sends the brand name stuff), so it’s expensive. Any chance someone found a great deal on Crestor over the internet?
I know that, I just didn’t want someone coming along and saying Oxycontin is 80mg of oxycodone and would count as a heavy duty oxycodone pill. It’s also a time release pill and would have to (IMHO) be chewed to count as ‘heavy duty’.
I have no idea, I just know it’s a clinical alert drug in my drug book, and if I give it to a patient who’s never had opioids before, I can lose my nursing license.