Expired Over the Counter Medications

Today I have cleaned out my bathroom shelves. I found loads of expired cold meds, allergy meds, aspirin, cough meds, all kinds of stuff. Hubby and I are hardly ever sick and this stuff just sits on the shelf. My questions is do you take these medicines if the date is expired. AND when you decide to toss them, how do you dispose of that stuff.

The only "danger" in taking expired OTC meds is that they lose their potency. I take them and see if they work.

If a med is like 10 years expired I think you should just toss it because the chances of you ever using it seems really low.

I would just toss it in the garbage.

I think the current disposal recommendation is to put it in a sealed container (the original bottle, or whatever) with something nasty like dirty kitty litter, ashes, coffee grounds, etc. to keep kids and animals from ingesting it after it's thrown out.

I'll use it if it's not too expired, and looks and smells OK. I think my limit is about 3 years after the date.

Here you are supposed to bring it to the pharmacy to dispose of medications. I usually take them after the expiry date as long as it's not really old.

In England we take them to the chemist and they dispose of them I believe they have to be incinerated

aeevr said:

The only "danger" in taking expired OTC meds is that they lose their potency. I take them and see if they work.

If a med is like 10 years expired I think you should just toss it because the chances of you ever using it seems really low.

I would just toss it in the garbage.

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I tend to keep things like cough medicines in the fridge, even unopened ones.  I take medications that are "expired" all of the time, with the exception of prescription ones.

Our local police department recently announced they have a collection box now for expired and unused medication.

catlover19 said:

Here you are supposed to bring it to the pharmacy to dispose of medications. I usually take them after the expiry date as long as it's not really old.

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Same here. If they're just a couple of months past the expiry date I still use them, but the older stuff goes to the pharmacy for disposal.