How was my New Year’s Eve Party, you ask? Fantastic, but now it’s back to the drugs:
I don’t get sick that often and when I do, the symptoms can differ from the previous snork fest so that every time I go to the medicine cabinet at the onset of a cold, any drugs I do find are expired. Also, living in two cities, doubles the likelihood of numerous expirations.
But this raises the question: do drugs really expire? And when they do expire, do they turn into poison, or do they just become less effective? Or is it all one big conspiracy from the pharmaceutical companies to get you to buy more drugs than is necessary? Like those jokers at the lube shop blowing hot air about how you HAVE to change your oil every 3 months or 3,000 miles. They’re lucky if they see me twice a year – greedy bastards.
Drugs have a long, long list of horrible side effects including death and 4+ hour erections. And that’s when they are taken within the designated date range. But what happens when you take an out-of-date pseudoephedrine tablet?
At 2am the other night, it felt like my throat would crack from the dryness if I wasn’t allowed to fall asleep with my mouth closed. I rolled out of bed in search of relief and found some Actifed decongestant pills that had been stored for God knows how long in my desk back at the office and were still in the packing box when I was laid off in November.
When you buy drugs it seems like the expiration date is YEARS away. But the very next time you get sick and grab it again, it’s expired. And this Actifed didn’t disappoint. The expiration date (or expiry date, for some of you non-US readers) was August 2008.
August 2008? That’s like coming up to a traffic light when it’s yellow and almost red. Do you take your chances and gun it? Or do you stop and wait the longest possible time for the next red and be miserable until it’s your turn again?
Actually, that was a crappy anology. Forget I said that. I’ll save it for another, more appropriate time.
Anyway, I wasn’t about to go looking for a 24-hour drugstore just to avoid Mouth Breather of the Year. Not when I could risk my life taking this barely expired little white pill.
So I pressed that little pill through its packaging, laid back with my Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast and waited. The next thing I knew, I was breathing through my nose again and falling fast asleep. Ahhhhhhh.
But I didn’t do this just for me. I did it for you, my dear readers, and pretty much all of mankind, really. I’m keeping you all safe from the possibility of keeling over from any long-in-the-tooth cold remedies.
It’s a service I provide with pride. And phlegm. So now because of Nanny Goats in Panties, you can look forward to your next cold feeling safe in the knowledge that your congealed cough syrup is just fine. Spit out the chunks if you must, but the rest of it is perfectly harmless.
And in these tough economic times, isn’t it a good thing to know that you don’t have to throw your money down the drain for so-called “fresh” medicine, when stale, out-dated drugs work just as well, if not better? I mean, wasn’t penicillin discovered from a moldy petri dish or something?
Oh can you try other drugs for us and blog about it? I’m still waiting for epidurals to catch on as street drugs.
everytime i hear that 4hr+ I giggle uncontrollably….where is Freud when you need him? LOL
Found your blog while I was roaming around. Really enjoyed reading it.
You were very selfless with your drug experimentation. Hope you’re feeling better.
You may have a few extra people slinking around on your blog – I gave you a semi-shout out yesterday.
Thanks for the SITS visit.
I always find expired stuff and I generally use it anyway. When you’re desperate, you’re desperate. I always say I’ll replace it next I go to the store…
Happy New Year
Wishing you a happy New Year, less snot and updated meds should the need arise.
I don’t get colds that often either but when I do I’ve got expired drugs too. I’ve just stopped taking them altogether. I like it when I get a really snotty nose. (I’m able to prove to my niece that I can spit loogies better than her anyday.)
No drugs don’t go bad… they just improve, like a fine wine, or a house fire!
Traveled here from the Muses, Blog! And got my giggle for the day….
I am SO glad you cleared up …lol…this expiration date thing for us all…lol
I always look at it this way…IF I am sick,or on the verge of becoming sick, IF I do not take something soon…it MAY cause me to EXPIRE…because of the near expired feeling I am feeling! SOOOOO….if I do indeed take an expired when I feel almost expired can it hurt…lol….(Whew…head spinning as IF i got into some expired potato salad…lol…I know another post) OK…but ANYWAY…in conclusion…
Perhaps if you feel like you are expiring…EXPIRED is best…why chance it!
This is my favorite post yet of yours! Hilarious! And don’t we ALL wonder those very things! (Will it turn to poison or just be less effective?) lol
Hey, the good news is that if your Airborne is old enough to advertise that it is a “cold remedy,” you’re eligible to claim your stake of the $23 million dollar lawsuit! Check the label!
Medicine expiration dates are just a warning that you need to take a lot more. I double the recommended dose for each year it’s past its due date.
I’m already miserable so what harm can it do, right? At least that would have been my fuzzy thought.
I hope you feel better soon!
I don’t know if drugs are still good but I found some Bayer aspirin from 1973 in our summer cabin a couple of years back. Wonder if they’re still good?
i had a pharmacist friend once who said that most drugs were good for a year or more after the expiration date. that included pain meds and cold meds. pretty much anything we would use is fine for some time afterwards. when we were getting ready to leave turkey i found stuff that was 5 years old in our cabinets. it was trashed! i’m pretty sure they were dead drugs. for sure!
My husband is a expiration date stickler, especially when it comes to the kids medicine pishh! What a square.
I hate being sick! Happy New Year!!!
Please get better soon. Posts like this are a bit disgusting, so it benefits us all for you to stay healthy.
Fabulous! Yes, mold is medicine afterall. Great insight. Love this post. Made me laugh. Hope ya feel better.
what no “horny goat weed” ???
hope you are “mo bettah” soon.
I think everyone here is missing something. Do you really think it’s an accident that the expiration date is in AUGUST? Before cold and flu season.
Get out of the herd, goaties. It’s all part of the diabolical plot. Terrible book, really, but still, a diabolical plot.
xo
Winter
Well, I hope you feel better. And I hope you don’t keel over from bad cold medicine. That would be a disappointing way to start the New Year.
There are experation dates on medicine?
Woops.
Wouldn’t you think expired meds would be like expired juice and just ferment, therefore making them more potent? Too bad that’s not the case. Good luck with your sickness.
I haven’t read your other comments, but I think it’s potency that changes.
I personally have a two year expired rule because I bought a manure load full of medicine I didn’t need one year. $300 worth at Costco because we needed to use or loose the rest of our flexible spending.
Now? We still have Costco sized Pepto–two years expired, but it still work. Motrin works damn fine two years expired on cramps and headaches. I have never used or even know what one needs Maalox and Milk of Magnesia for, but I got some (expired) just in case. Damned if I was going to let those dollars of our leave our house. Where do they go if you don’t use them anyway? The way the account stewards hassle us for receipts and more receipts and authorization, I would think they get to keep it? anyone know.
Oh, yes, I forgot the most important thing. If you ever, ever have a sore throat, do not, I repeat, do not use expired Chloraseptic Oral analgesic spray from my marvelous MIL’s house. She tried to poison me. The throat, inflamed already, felt soaked in Napalm. An hour later, I checked the label. Yes, my friends, she gave me a medicinal spray that had been EXPIRED FOR TEN! TEN! TEN! years! It had evaporated to straight alcohol sludge. Put that on your raw throat?
Sigh.
Oh, and if there is ever a medical emergency that needs band aids and gauze, I’m your woman. I’m pretty sure those never expire and so I bought to deluxe first aid kits the size of suitcases and then 10 more boxes or so. No one gets a paper cut without a band aid in this house.
Heh!
Happy New Year!!
I treat expiration dates more as a guideline than a rule. This applies to condiments, eggs, and salad dressing as well as medication. Not milk, though. Milk seems to turn stinky the instant the expiration date arrives.
HA! Very funny and VERY useful. I’ve had this same quandary. But when I’m desperate for drugs, I usually throw caution to the wind and just swallow. So far, nothing terrible has happened. I really do believe some drugs just lose their efficacy. My doc told me that OTC eardrops are good only for about 6 months (at which point they dry up), but the expiration date is much longer. So there you go. Feel better!
Expired? I usually use the stuff until it’s all stuck together in the bottle and I have to jab at it with a seafood fork. I was scrounging around my box of stuff from my last job too – been on the shelf for a year but I remembered I had a Lancome mascara and some Aleve in there that I could use really bad. Are we kindred spirits or what, Nan! Looking forward to a hysterical 2009 over here at the goat house!
Hmmm… As long as you’re willing to be a human guinea pig, I may have some other “dangerous” things for you to test.
Talk to the wife. She works in QC for a pharma company, and used to work in the stability group. Needless to say, any expired products in our house don’t last long.
Good thing chocolate doesn’t have expiration dates. 🙂
If you don’t get a Nobel Prize for that research, I’ll be the first to protest.
Feel better.
LOL! I usually throw out medicine when it’s several years old!
As long as you believe you will get better when you take a med, you will!
Who knew drugs expired? I guess I can’t read fine print. I am with you and always think it is a big conspiracy…so lets take our chances!
thank you for being the “tester” for us all!
glad to hear all is well.
sorry you have the snottynose… 🙁
sending you some homemade chicken noodle soup and a hug.
xo
August ’08??? Awwww, that’s nothing!! Sorry you’re not feeling well, yet you still manage to make us laugh!!!
I thought the August analogy was great, actually…it *does* feel like that …
Sheesh. I’m taking stuff that I bought when Clinton was president. I’m still here. *twitch*
Happy New Year, sweet tater!
We don’t need no stinkin’ expiry dates!
Thank you, Nanny Goats in Panties (you ARE wearing panties, aren’t you?), for this in-depth analytical treatise on The Man, who is, once again, trying to make us little people donate our hard-earned cashola to the pharmaceutical megalopalies.
Fortunately, the only med that surpasses its expiration is Prep-H.
http://www.nanadiaries.com
http://fragrantliar.blogspot.com
Well, thank goodness for that! I feel much safer now. 🙂
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Good to know. Since it is on the Internet, I know it must be true. : )
I mock your measly 4 month old medicine…heck I have medicine in my cabinet that expired when I graduated from high school….and I used it! (of course I used it by giving it to my hubby). He was fine…no worries…his hair would have fallen out anyway.
At least you bothered to check the box. Honestly, all my cold medicine is flung around the closet in loose packages. Who knows where the box went, and when the crap expired!
Yep, its a semi scam. I used to work in a Dr’s office and I asked the RX rep and he said you can generally tack on about 6 months before it starts to lose its effectiveness.
Seriously, thanks for taking one for the team. Hope you feel better!
PS I just saw your blogger profile and now think we’re kindred spirits. And not only because you like the scissor sisters AND The Hoffman.
Aug 2008? Sheesh, you’re an expired drug liteweight! In an effort to combat a recent rhinovirus invasion I scrounged some 2005 nyquil and 2001 advil cold tablets out of my medicine cabinet.
I’m feeling better now of course, but I have to admit the extra toe growing out the side of my neck is a bit of a surprise.
Get well soon.
wait, I’m still thinking about that four hour erection. Who in God’s name would want THAT???
Even when you’re sick, you’re funny!
IB
I’ve got a solution to your problem. Don’t read the expiration dates and all is well.
Hope you feel better soon. 🙂
Thanks for taking one for the team for us! I’ve frequently had that some dilemma and debated about whether just taking the pill would do nothing, or maybe the medicine fermented and it would be super fantastic! (It works for wine…)
Somehow it all seems illegal. The taking of medication that has been deemed worthy of detonation.
I have no desire to ‘splode and I’m sure the government doesn’t want us to splode either.
If the Food and Drug Commission says it’s no good then by golly, I’m goina believe them. Or at least question them.
After all, it is our DUTY to spend more money on pills. Keep the currency and the pills flowing.
Most expired OTC meds are just less effective. Not that they were all that effective anyway.
Feel better
My husband is always going through our medications and tossing out the ones that are expired… I then go through the bag that he has put them in to put in his drug incineration bin at work (he works in a pharmacy) and take out the “barely expired” ones and put them back 🙂
OK, explain to me again why a four-hour erection is a bad thing…?
I mean, you know, bad for ME.
Happy New Year!
~ A.
I don’t the the effectiveness changes, just the side effects.
I know the nurses where the oldest diva used to work said tylenol was good for 10 years after expiring but there were only one or two things that became toxic- I would have risked it too instead of going around all those sickos just waiting to breathe on me.
I sometimes feel like the Queen Mother SuperFreak, when it comes to expiration dates. I take meds that have expired. They just lose their potency a little, and if the first dose doesn’t work, I just add a smidge more on the next round! (BEWARE, don’t use expired sunscreen). I am a FREAK about expired food though. I will throw away canned food if it is 1 week overdue. I tossed some Miracle Whip yesterday because it was expired by 2 days! Glad the meds worked for you!
It’s probably super judgmental of me that my first thought seeing the picture was “Dang, Nanny Goats must be getting paid, look at her with all that brand name medicine”.
I am really glad the medicine worked! I hope you feel better soon.
And I’m constantly throwing out medicine because my husband for reasons related to him being crazy tosses out the box because it’s “clutter” and just puts the blister pack in the cupboard. I guess he thinks it makes sick being more fun to not know if you are taking an anti-diarrheal or medicine for menstrual cramps or baby ear ache medicine.
I just had this experience. I was sick and ravaged all our medicines to find out that they are all 3 years expired…..
Happy New Year!
Get well soon!
Anything around 6 months past their expiration will not be as effective. As far as I know, they don’t turn into poison.
I’m curious about expired Viagra. Would you only get a semi then?
Someone should investigate this and report back.
i toss those expired medicines!!! it just makes me feel like i’m cleaning house. like i actually did something…
the last time i took expired medicine i woke up in another time zone without my clothes on and a pink sombrero on my head. Just sayin ….
petri dish
VERY well observed bit about those expiration dates!
Supposedly dated drugs just lose some of their effectiveness. But I like to just crush it up and snort it for maximum affect. It works for the gateway drugs like Sudefed but then you get into the whole addiction thing and trust me, sniffing up something harder like crushed Viagra is no walk in the park.