How long can you use medicine after expiration date?

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asked Jul 28, 2023 in Other- Health by Bootldir (1,270 points)
How long can you use medicine after expiration date?

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answered Dec 6, 2023 by waitforme (13,460 points)
You can safely use medicine for 1 to 2 years after expiration date.

However medicine is best used before expiration or at least within a month or two of expiration date.

Medicine gets less effective and loses it's potency the longer it has been expired.

You can tell if medicine is expired without the expiration date by looking at the batch code.

Most medicine should have the batch code which could be located on the box or bottle the medicine came in.

Also the medicine bottle, medicine tube, etc should also have the expiration date on it which can be abbreviated as EXP.

A batch number is associated with information about the items.

Most common information is production facility name, expiry date and manufacturing date.

Thus items with the same batch number have the same expiry date.

Batch numbers can be found on all packaged food items and medicines.

The standard format of an expiration date on medicine is MMDDYY, where “MM” refers to the month, “DD” refers to the date, and “YY” refers to the year.

So if a product says 101525, it means that the product expires on October 15, 2025.

Medicine is safe to take after expiration date although it will lose it's potency and be less effective the older it gets.

It's best to use medicine before it's expiration date but it's not harmful to take the medicine after expiration but not recommended.

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