medications known to be harmful to your health if you take them after the expiration date

Is it too early for spring cleaning?

You may want to check the expiration dates on your medicine cabinet products — with some experts saying outdated pills will harm your health.

“Depending on the product, it can be dangerous to use them after the expiry date,” pharmacist Deborah Grayson told the Daily Mail.

“While some are more concerning than others, always be on the safe side and check that your pills and creams are out of date before using them.”

Lower-risk products include drugs such as ibuprofen that are stored in “blister packs” rather than bottles because “oxygen will not be able to enter” the packaging.

“While they may be safe for a few months beyond the expiration date, the effect is likely to be reduced,” Grayson warned.

Similarly, medications such as antidepressants and antihistamines are not harmful to your health if you take them past their expiration date, although they may simply be less effective. Expired vitamins also become ineffective, but are not toxic.

Adhesive bandages, however, can become less sterile if they are expired – and they become less sticky.

“If all you have is old clothing, then I would use it, but replace it with old products as soon as possible,” Grayson said.

She added that older antibiotics can make you sick if taken after the expiration date, especially if they are stored in bottles rather than in sealed packages. Liquid antibiotics pose a higher risk of causing illness because they can be contaminated with infectious bacteria, she added.

To dispose of prescriptions, she advised patients to visit their local pharmacy so the medication can be safely disposed of.

The highest-risk items that may be lurking in your medicine cabinet include aspirin, which can degrade over time due to exposure to oxygen. To tell if the medicine is spoiled, Grayson said it will have “a strong, vinegar-like smell,” meaning it’s “not good to use.”

“Consuming it can potentially cause damage to the stomach lining,” she warned.

Expired creams or ointments, she added, can cause infection if applied to broken skin, according to Grayson.

“Since steroids also turn off the immune response, this can increase the risk of infection,” she said.

Finally, the eye drops should be discarded 28 days after opening, regardless of the expiration date.

“Always mark your eye drops with the date you first used them so you know when to throw them out,” she explained, adding that opened bottles of cough syrup should also be thrown away. six months old.