Watch your pill packs folks!

[jaycee444]

I have today collected from my local pharmacy 3 packs of 2.5mg GE coated Prednisolone only to discover that 2 packs had an expiry date of October 2019 and 1 pack expired Nov 2018 !!!!! Have returned them for replacement but if I hadnt checked ????

[Hidden]

It’s always good practice to double check, they’ve probably been sorting out as either they or the Suppliers have obviously not been rotating their stick properly.

I’ve put all mine in date order recently & numbered all the packs.

A bit OCD but you never know!....

[Hidden in reply to Hidden]

I always did that on 15 to 10mg as a pack doesn't last long. Nothing OCD....it's called organisation...I stand my ground.🤪😉

[Telian in reply to Hidden]

I'm not OCD but have to be organised with myself and hubby as he has so much medication. The house is dead at the moment as he's seriously ill in hospital so not been on here much - I'm just chilling before going to see him - long days.....

[Hidden in reply to Telian]

Oh dear. I hope oh recovers asap. I will keep my fingers crossed....Sundays can feel longer than other days for some reason.🌻

[Telian in reply to Hidden]

Thanks Poop x

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to Telian]

Sorry to hear that - hugs, know all about those days ...

[Telian in reply to PMRpro]

Thank you - much appreciated.

Been little break yet but he’s starting to respond to treatment - was called to hospital early Friday as he’d worsened since I left only a few hours earlier- they managed to resuscitate him! x

[Hidden in reply to Telian]

Make sure you take care of you too...always hard in such circumstances.💜

[Telian in reply to Hidden]

He’s had another setback today - getting good care. It’s a brand new unit - I compared it to business class - hubby said as long as I’ve got a return ticket! - hasn’t lost his sense of humour!

Thanks Poops x

[Hidden in reply to Telian]

😂😂😂 bless him. Humour can do a lot. Night.

[SuziCutie in reply to Telian]

Sorry to hear about your hubby. Hope you have better news soon x

[Telian in reply to SuziCutie]

How lovely of you - very kind of you patrees - much appreciated. x

[Jackoh in reply to Hidden]

Yes did mine last week as I have a supply of 5mg but a lot of 1 mg. Put them all in date order and numbered each pack. Was quite a satisfying experience. Realise I must get out more. 😂😂xx

[pigeonCl-HU in reply to Hidden]

certainly not OCD; just common sense....well I would say that, I do the same ...

And yes I always check expiry dates.

pigeon

[PMRpro Ambassador]

The October ones would be OK until the end of next month - and they don't self-destruct between Oct 31st and Nov 1st. The others - definitely not! Does rather confirm my suspicions they are clearing the shelves of all older stuff before the B-word may affect things!

[Hidden in reply to PMRpro]

I always go to the back of the shelf for the longest date on fresh food so l kind of apply that to my Meds too.......

My Chemist gave me some Pred last year & they warned me it had a shorter than usual Use Before Date on it, so they advised l used that first before any l had in stock. They actually had a Six Month Use Before Date on them, so not too bad in the scheme of things.

[HeronNS]

The ones expiring next month should have been good for at least six more months, but the one from last year??? That's not good!

[jaycee444]

Pharmacist told me they had had to order them in so the problem was with the supplier.

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to jaycee444]

Oh yes - the suppliers are clearing space ...

[piglette]

Are you sure the Nov 2018 is not the manufacturing date? I often make the mistake of thinking they are out of date.

[jaycee444]

Absolutely positive. The pharmacist was shocked.

[Blearyeyed]

It's awful , but unfortunately very common.

Thanks for putting up the post as regular reminders that we should check the use by dates on our medication , especially when we pick them from the Pharmacy can not come to often.

Hope you got it sorted out without to much extra work for you xx

[palewolf]

Just picked up my 1mg Pred from pharmacy. All packets are Oct 2020 expiry. My 5mg that I got in July are June 2020 expiry. So far I have had no trouble in getting what I want, despite warnings of shortages etc.

[SheffieldJane]

It makes you wonder about some of the inexplicable flares. I have also spotted tablets really close to an expiry date.

[Hidden in reply to SheffieldJane]

I believe l had a ‘dodgy’ pack when l had an unexplained dip so l changed the pack & in a day or two l started to pick up.

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to SheffieldJane]

I've mentioned the 5mg pills that didn't work when the 2.5mg ones issued at the same time did - but they were dispensed loose so there was no sign of a "use by" date. And the pharmacist couldn't help either.

[Hidden in reply to PMRpro]

I can’t remember when l last had tablets in a bottle until l went to the hospital just over a month ago & they dispensed my Methotrexate into a bottle.

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to Hidden]

It was a long time ago - 7 years now I think - and I've had nothing from the UK since. The thought of dispensing in bottles here would bring some raised eyebrows I suspect. OH has 2mg warfarin capsules made up for him - they only come in 5mg tablets here and he can't swallow halves and 2.5mg is too much anyway. But never seen anything else. AND you get a full month's supply (well 28 or 30) as minimum.

[Hellyowl]

Mine are all 2021 but are a mix of manufacturers

[Hidden]

😖

[SusanJF]

Good to note thanks!

[PMRnewbie2017]

When I was at Uni learning about tablet manufacture, dissolution testing and stability testing of tablets as part of my Pharmacy degree, I remember being told that expiry dates which are applied are much shorter than the actual stability of the product. A quick "Google" has thrown up this information pasted below. Years ago pharmaceutical company reps would take back very short dated or recently expired meds and they would be sent to third world countries so they could benefit from them. This is not allowed now.

I would agree that if the expiry date is a year past then it would be sensible to dispose of the tablets but a few weeks is not going to make any difference. There are exceptions, thermolabile products (insulins), tetracyclines, products very sensitive to UV light etc.

The following explains the commercial restraints and puts it into perspective I think.

The Myth of Drug Expiration Dates (propublica.org)

609 points by danso on July 18, 2017 | hide | past | web | favorite | 263 comments

ekianjo on July 19, 2017 [-]

I worked on expiration dates studies in pharma. It's well known that you could probably always extend the shelf life to 3-4 years for most drugs that are supposed to expire within 2 only, because tablets for example tend to be very stable.

But nobody wants to run long stability studies, because that costs a lot of money (i.e. several batches that have to be analyzed in regular basis, documented, reported, QA'ed, inspected, etc... - and you need to place them in numerous conditions, too, ambient temperature as well as stressed conditions depending on where you intend to market the drug), and bring very little returns at the end of the day. You'd rather want your engineers to work on developing new formulations and regulatory teams to spend time on the application of new drugs rather than adding one or two years of shelf life to an existing drug on the market.

Also know that you can't "extrapolate" and need actual data based on regulations of the big 3 geographies (US, Europe, Japan). So "models" are not accepted. Also, these agencies are extremely conservative when it comes to what impurities should be considered acceptable and at what levels they should be. Not saying they are necessarily wrong, but this is another constraints. I have seen cases where it was difficult to extend one drug's shelf life because of a single impurity being a little over the tolerated limit

[Jackoh]

Thanks for the reminder.

[PMRCanada]

After a recent post about expiration dates on medications I reviewed my current stock to discover there were no dates on the bottle labels. So I called in and the pharmacist tracked the prescriptions and provided the expiry dates accordingly (which I marked on the labels to keep track).

None even close to being out of date here in Ontario, Canada.

Now I am only on pred having stopped my half tablet of blood pressure medication Aug 6 due to low blood pressure readings (light headed, dizzy symptoms).

[Purplecrow]

I've long made a practice of checking the contents of the bottle, package, at the pharmacy counter when picking up meds. Read the printed receipt to see that the drug, dose, # of pills, and appearance of drugs is consistent with what I am expecting. Its common that generic drugs from different manufacturers are dispensed from time to time, meaning the appearance of drugs is different from time to time. Even more of a problem is that multiple pills are all small white pills. Need to drag out a mag glass to read the tiny print on pill, if in doubt...

the pharmacist happy to explain differences, changes, etc. sometimes, they will even split pills for me.

I know...I know...🤪, but getting old sucks when you cant read the tiny print.

Ta Ta..💃🏼