How long after expiration date is aleve good

Q: Do pain relievers work after expiration date?

Now, you may be asking yourself, Does ibuprofen expire?” And, the answer is yes. All medications, even those available OTC, have expiration dates. But its unlikely that theyll harm you if you take them past that date. Though, they may not work as well — or at all — to alleviate your symptoms.

Most of us have several over-the-counter and prescription medicines stored for safekeeping in our bathroom cabinets: prescribed pills from previous injuries and hospital stays, tablets of allergy relief medicine and decongestants, and bottles of aspirin we've brought home after getting an unexpected headache at work. Those medications have expiration dates stamped on them, but how important are they? Is it ever safe to take a pain pill that has an expiration date of a week, a month, or even a year ago?

Índice Show

The Test for Using Expired Medications
What Can You Take?
Introduction
What does an expiration date mean?
Expiry date
Is Aleve still good after expiration date?
Can you take naproxen after expiry date?
Do pain relievers work after expiration date?
Can I take Advil that expired 2 years ago?

Pharmaceutical expiration dates are not like the expiration dates you will find on fresh vegetables, meats, or dairy products. Unlike perishable foods, many medications do not spoil or "go bad" in the sense that we usually think of when we talk about expiration dates. When it comes to the majority of your medications, the expiration is only the last date that the pharmaceutical company can guarantee its potency. "So, they [meaning drug companies] never really recommend taking medicines after expiration dates," says Kari Sierant, an advanced practice nurse (APN) based in New Jersey. "They want to make sure that you get the full potency and safe medication, and that is why they make expiration dates."

Some medications, like those for cardiac health or diabetes management, have hard expiration dates. Sierant says that medicines like nitroglycerin, insulin and liquid antibiotics should not be taken after their expiration dates. These medicines require special handling and storage, and they contain ingredients that can spoil. For prescriptions that affect your ability to live, you need to have the right potency and the guarantee of freshness. These, however, are the exceptions. "Some effectiveness can decrease over time, but a lot of studies have shown that the original potency still remains with most common medicines years after the expiration date," Sierant says. "A lot of medicines also show that 70 to 80 percent keep their original potency one to two years after expiration date."

The Test for Using Expired Medications

For medications that do not need to be refrigerated or that do not need to be at full potency to ensure your life and well-being, you can get away with taking them months (and even years) after their printed expiration dates, Sierant says. So, for example, you can take that expired aspirin for your headache but you should order a new bottle of insulin instead of using one that hit expiration even a day ago.

What Can You Take?

While medical professionals recommend that you only take medications that are unexpired, you can still safely take the following kind of medicines after their expiration date if you don't need them to be at full potency in order to make you feel better: pain relievers such as aspirin, ibuprofen, and acetaminophen in tablet form; antihistamines, allergy, and sinus tablets; and cold medicines like Mucinex, Sudafed, and Theraflu, in tablet or powder form.

If the medication comes in a dry form, like tablet or powder, and has been stored in a cool, dry place out of direct sunlight, then the medication may still retain its potency and effectiveness years later. In addition to storing medicines properly, you should consider the look and smell of the medicines before taking them. (Aspirin, for one, has chemical ingredients that can go bad after a certain amount of time and can smell like vinegar.) But medications that come in liquid forms or that contain perishable ingredients (like probiotics) or need to be refrigerated should be used within the time frame prescribed by your doctor and by the expiration dates on the bottle. Antibiotics also need to be taken when prescribed. "These are medications that you would never want to worry about whether they are effective or not when you need them," Sierant says. "The expiration dates should be heeded for these medicines."

Corresponding author: Premanand Ponoth, Department of Cardiology and Cardiothoracic & Vascular Surgery The Karen Hospital, Nairobi, Kenya. moc.liamg@htonopp

Keywords: Medication, drugs, drug expiry, drug efficacy

Licensee African Health Sciences. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Introduction

There is so much wastage of drugs as they are not used in time. Medications are expensive, and in the Asian and African continents, where many have the problem of affordability the debate is to see if the medication could be used even after the expiry date without losing the efficacy. Most of drug expiration dates information is from the study conducted by the Food and Drug Administration at the request of the military. With a large and expensive stockpile of drugs, the military faced tossing out and replacing its drugs every few years. What they found from the study is 90% of more than 100 drugs, both prescription and over-the-counter, were perfectly good to use even 15 years after the expiration date.

Hence, the expiration date doesn't really indicate a point at which the medication is no longer effective or has become unsafe to use.

What does an expiration date mean?

The expiration date is the final day that the manufacturer guarantees the full potency and safety of a medication. Drug expiration dates exist on most medication labels, including prescription, over-the-counter (OTC) and dietary (herbal) supplements.

Proper storage of medications may help to extend their potency. The bathroom and medicine cabinet are not ideal places to store medications due to heat and humidity. Similarly, medications should not be left in a hot car. Medications remain most stable in dry, cool spaces away from light. Keep the prescription bottle caps tightly closed and always keep medications out of reach of children and pets.

Expiry date

The 2015 commentary in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, “Extending Shelf Life Just Makes Sense,” suggested that drug makers could be required to set a preliminary expiration date and then update it after long-term testing. Even though the literature denotes western circumstances, we can take a leaf or two to modify to work around it, so that it will be beneficial to the African continent, especially more so in the peripheral outreach health centers in Africa where availability and storage of medicines are a challenge.

Is Aleve still good after expiration date?

Once the expiration date has passed there is no guarantee that the medicine will be safe and effective. If your medicine has expired, do not use it. According to the DEA many people don't know how to properly clean out their medicine cabinets.

Can you take naproxen after expiry date?

You should not take medicines after their expiry date. If you've had a medicine for a while, check the expiry date before using it. You should also make sure that you've stored the medicine properly, as described on the packaging or leaflet.

Do pain relievers work after expiration date?

Now, you may be asking yourself, “Does ibuprofen expire?” And, the answer is yes. All medications, even those available OTC, have expiration dates. But it's unlikely that they'll harm you if you take them past that date. Though, they may not work as well — or at all — to alleviate your symptoms.

Can I take Advil that expired 2 years ago?

It is not recommended to take expired ibuprofen. According to the official site for Advil, a name brand of ibuprofen, the product can lose its potency past the expiration date. In addition, there is a risk of change to the medication's chemical composition if it has not been stored correctly.