No, I am not asking for health advice. I have a skin condition which acts up from time to time. I had some antibiotics I took for it back in March. Its acting up again and am wondering if I took the rest of the antibiotics (he gave me a good quantity) would they work if they were slightly expired?
The problem is more the dosage than the expiration date. In order to stop an infection from just coming back- stronger- you need to take *all the prescription. *
In this case, it’s doubtful if the remaining dosage would do any good, even if current. More likely it will just make your condition more resistant to antibiotics.
Contact your MD.
I get it, but I did take 4 weeks worth back in March, I got the refill filled just in case it flared up again. So there would be no problem, I have enough to take this full course.
AH, disregard the question (though if it helps anyone else). Just looked, I got the refill in late July. There are 60 of them so I’m good.
In my experience, antibiotics are kind of sensitive drugs to light and humidity and other sources of degradation, in that they do tend to degrade faster than, say, acetaminophen (Tylenol), and so taking them past their expiration date is riskier. That said, these things aren’t time bombs - they don’t immediately turn bad on the last day of the month on the label, but it is reasonable to assume that at some point in the future, they will turn bad (degrade/become ineffective/become toxic/etc). It’s like food; you might choose to finish the milk the day after it’s best before date, but would you take it three days later? A week? A year?
The thing to remember about expiration dates is that they reflect the last known data about the drug. The company that makes it has shown that it does not degrade more than some limit (usually +/- 2% of label/original T=0 strength) within the time stated, but after that amount of time, there is no data whatsoever to say what is happening to the drug. No one is studying it, and no one ever will unless the laws change, which is unlikely, and even then, all that would do is move the end line to another date, and people would still be asking the same question.
As a general rule, taking expired medication is not recommended because of the lack of data, the risk of ineffective treatment of medical conditions, and the related liability issues (is the company at fault if you take something they say not to take?).
If in doubt, speak to your doctor and get another prescription. I’m sure you know more about your health than what you’ve posted here (wouldn’t it be fucked up if you didn’t?) but it’s also an opportunity to ensure that taking this round of antibiotics is the correct path to treat a repeat infection - your doctor might prefer trying something else this time around.
The most common effect on medications is that they become weaker as they age, so that after expiration they would be less effective than before – it would take more of them to have the same medical effect. There are hardly any common prescription drugs that “go bad” in the sense of becoming dangerous to take.
And the expiration period is set like mnemosyne stated – it is the length of time that the drug was followed through the FDA testing procedure. This is set more by economics than by pharmacology – those FDA tests are expensive to run, and they delay getting the drug into the market. So the company will try to keep them as short as possible, matching to the expected use of the drug. Most antibiotics, for example, are prescribed for short periods, usually less than 6 weeks. So testing a new antibiotic for 2-3 months is reasonable for a drug company.
The same thing applies to what is called off-label use of drugs. At our stables, our Vet has prescribed drugs for our horses that are tested & approved for cattle, but not for horses. Because the drug maker didn’t think the market for horse use was large enough to justify the expense of going through a testing procedure on horses, so they only did testing on cattle. But horses & cattle are similar enough that many medicines work similarly, so Vets will prescribe an approved cattle medicine for horses.
Tetracycline degenerates into a harmful compound. Don’t take expired Tetracycline.
miatachris, R.Ph.
This was filled 3 months ago. It is tetra.
Also, if you have a medical problem which you think requires antibiotics, you should see a doctor, not just self-diagnose and use whatever antibiotics you have on hand. There’s a reason these guys go to med school for years.
I doubt the doctor gave you a refill just for the hell of it. As others have mentioned some antibiotics degrade and become toxic. Most likely you were to take the entire prescription, which includes subsequent refills.
Bacteria reproduce very quickly (a population can double every ten minutes) and mutate at an alarming rate. Antibiotics kill the most susceptible bacteria first. Interestingly, this means the subsequent generation is less likely to be killed by the antibiotic being used. Further, some of the next generation will have random mutations that make it even more resistant to that particular antibiotic. The idea is to pump so much of the antibiotic into your body that over time it kills even the very last strong hold outs. However, if you stop taking the antibiotic before you kill those hold outs you have just made a strain that is highly resistant. It will reproduce and be very difficult to treat.
So please, everyone, if a doctor prescribes you antibiotics make sure you understand the treatment and do as instructed. Even if you are feeling better after a few days COMPLETE THE TREATMENT.
Seconded.
But, I think it needs to be emphasized more strongly that, if it is indeed the case (as it almost certainly is) that your doctor intended for you to take all the antibiotics he prescribed, then taking the ones you failed to take now is only going to make things worse in the long run. The issue is not whether the pills are still good; the issue is whether you have taken enough of them, over a continuous period, to fully clear the bugs out of your system. If you take the ones you have left over, even if they do seem to clear up the symptoms, the problem is probably going to keep flaring up, and will get harder and harder to cure.
You should not take the ones you have left over. You should go back to your doctor, get a new prescription, and take them all (unless, of course, he/she tells you otherwise).
Ok. My dr gave me 5 refills of 60 pills. He did not intend for me to take them that long. He knows this is a recurring thing (rosacea) and told me when it cropped up again to get the refill and take the usual dose. In face back last winter I took it for 4 weeks instead of 2.
The label says its no good after July 2011.