When it involves survival drugs, I create no claim of being an professional. I am, after all, a mere layperson with no medical training. On the other hand, I do possess a decent deal of logic thus when one thing appears a bit off, I do my own analysis and make choices based upon information and not upon supposition.
Most of what’s familiar about drug expiration dates comes from a study conducted by the Food and Drug Administration at the request of the military. With an outsized and expensive stockpile of medication, the military faced tossing out and replacing its medicine each few years. What they found from the study is ninetieth of over one hundred drugs, each prescription and over-the-counter, were absolutely good to use even fifteen years after the expiration date.
The question of whether outdated medicine are viable beyond their expiration date could be a heated topic within the prepper community. I get that as a result of there are some medications that fully shouldn’t be taken when they are old and expired. Some common examples include nitroglycerin, insulin, liquid antibiotics, and epinephrine but there are others.
What you need to know
Expiration dates were 1st mandated in the us in 1979. They’re the last day that a pharmaceutical company will guarantee 100% efficiency of a drugs. These medicines don’t, by and huge, become toxic after the expiration date. I promise you that you won’t grow a horn in the center of your forehead if you’re taking a pill the week after it expires.
In several cases, medicine in pill, powder, or capsule form are 100 percent potent for years after their expiration date. however do i know this? Federal Emergency Management Agency, and also the Department of Defense stockpiles many doses of medications utilized in emergency settings. in the past, when those medicine expired, they were discarded.
This gets to be pretty expensive, so a study was performed known as the shelf life extension program, one thing I 1st wrote regarding years ago. This program found that most medications, as long as they’re in pill or capsule type, were still effective after their expiration dates, generally for years. As such, I suggested not throwing them away but, instead, creating them a part of your survival medical storage.
This, by the way, wasn’t the case for medicines in liquid form. They lost efficiency quickly after their expiration dates, so aren’t helpful for long-term survival settings.
These findings led the government to put out extensions of expiration dates surely medication as needed, like the five year extension given the anti-viral drug Tamiflu during the 2009 swine flu epidemic.
Despite this, you’ll see quotes, often from educational types, that medications are dangerous when expired and may be tossed. These opinions are fine in normal times, however if you’re reading this article, you’re most likely a member of the preparedness community or at least fascinated by the topic. You may even be the person who would be medically responsible in situations when the rescue helicopter is heading the other method.
Good, you’re exactly who i would like to speak to since you’ll someday need to make a choice during a true disaster setting regarding whether or to not use an expired medication.
Let’s say a loved one is attenuation from an infection. One thing dangerous is going on and you’re off the grid with very little or no hope of getting to modern medical aid. You’ve got an expired bottle of antibiotics. What are you planning to do? Someone you’re love on is dying. are you planning to use the expired drug or not? Exactly.
Of course, medicines should be keep in cool, dry, dark conditions. Their efficiency will fade doubly as quick if keep at ninety degrees as if keep at fifty degrees. Freezing them, however, is never useful. Even if stored in suboptimal conditions, a capsule or pill that hasn’t modified color or consistency is maybe still worth keeping for austere settings.
Sometimes, during a true disaster, the problems that may facing the medically responsible will be very basic. What’s the problem? Do I actually have medication that will treat it? Might this drugs, although it’s expired, probably save a life? When it comes down to it, can you really choose to not use it to stop a death because it’s going to possibly have side effects or not be quite as strong as it was?
In this scenario, don’t withhold a drug as a result of some professors said it wasn’t a good plan to use it. Believe me, they weren’t seriously considering a time once an expired medication may be the only choice you’ve got left.
Let’s hope it ne’er gets to that point, however getting ready for the worst, while hoping for the most effective isn’t a foul strategy to deal with the unsure future.
In our heart of hearts, we’d never advisedly do damage to a loved one. Talking that one step further, we would do everything we could to make sure their health and their safety when the chips are down.
These days, my own preference is to use herbal remedies and essential oils to require care of my beloved one’s health care needs. However in times of distress, who can predict what we’ll have available following a disaster or different disruptive event? For that reason, I actually have stockpiled old, no longer used medicine. This includes each prescription and over-the-counter meds. They’re tucked away with several of my alternative “I hope to ne’er need to use” preps. The sole price to keeping them is the space they take and what the heck? Why wouldn’t I do that?
Information is power and the best piece of survival gear you’ll ever own is the brain. Read and study as much as you’ll regarding survival drugs and always, use wisdom.
