Just like foods, medicines also have a minimum shelf life and taking expired medicine can be dangerous.
In Italy, according to a recent report, at least 40% of the drugs found in homes have expired. This means first of all that there is a lack of culture regarding safety in the use of medicines.
Many people don’t look at it expiry date of the medicineor they don’t know how to store the drugs, ei you risk facing serious consequences they are tall.
Be careful, if you take expired medicine you risk big risks: everything you need to know
Learn to use medications correctly First of all, it allows you not to waste but above all to safeguard your health.
Generally the medicines we buy have a very long shelf life, even up to 6 years. The expiry date printed on the label serves precisely to ensure that the drug is taken within the times considered safe, although in some cases exceptions can be made.
It must be said, for example, that i risks resulting from taking an expired drug are also different depending on the drug itself. For example, they are lower with a mild painkiller but increase in the case of antibiotics and pediatric drugs.
Antibiotics, in fact, have active ingredients that must be perfectly preserved to work. In rare cases you can suffer serious kidney damage if you take expired antibiotics, although despite this the CDC “reassures”: amoxicillin, ciprofloxacin and new generation antibiotics I am safe up to tens of years after expiration. However, this does not mean taking them lightly, especially if the expiration date has already passed.
Particular attention is needed regarding pediatric drugs. Children do not have as mature an immune system as adultsand therefore they may experience more serious symptoms if they take expired medicines.
Furthermore, the formulation of the medicine itself can also influence: in fact The tablets seem to keep betterso much so that they are 100% stable even up to 24 months after expiry. This is not the case, however, for liquid medicines, such as suspensions, syrups, eye drops or injected drugs. In the case of liquid medicines, however, you also have the possibility of checking with your own eyes whether there is any form of impairment: the liquid must not have sediments, deposits on the bottom, or present changes in color and consistency. In these cases they should absolutely not be taken, regardless of the expiry date.
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