Do you also have this habit? Every time I buy the medicine, I throw away the pill box and pack the medicine in the smart pill box. As a result, I forgot what these pills are for after a long time. Can’t check the expiration date? What should be done?
I met such a patient today, who came here with a small bag of medicine, saying that after picking up the medicine at the pharmacy, he threw away all the original packaging for portability, and took the pills that he needed every day. It is packaged in various small bags, and then placed in a portable sub-packaging box, but the relevant instructions and labels of the medicine are not retained. I only know that it needs to be taken every day, but I can’t tell what medicine these colorful tablets are.
For those of us who deal with drugs on a daily basis, we immediately turned on the Sherlock Holmes detective mode, trying to identify what kind of drug it is from the aspects of shape, color, and logo…
Some tablets can be used. It can be recognized at a glance, because it is special, it may have a unique shape, it may have a unique logo on the tablet, or it may have a unique color. For example, the heart-shaped tablets in this bag are bisoprolol used to control blood pressure and reduce heart rate. , the green pills are febuxostat used to lower uric acid, the white pills with an “S” symbol on one side and “113” on the other side are losartan potassium tablets for blood pressure lowering…
This is the case We often need to guess based on the patient’s medical history. Of course, if the patient is fixed in our hospital for follow-up, it can greatly reduce the difficulty of identifying pills. We can check the patient’s medical record and prescription for one-to-one correspondence.
As a pharmacist, I still have to remind the patients:
1. Don’t throw away the original medicine box after buying the medicine. You can keep one medicine box and one medicine box for each medicine. Instructions, packed in a bag to avoid loss and easy to trace;
2. If you have the habit of taking out the pills and putting them in the portable sub-packing box, it is recommended to stick a sticky note outside the sub-packing box, or in the A label is attached to the transparent bag in the picture, indicating the name of the drug, usage and dosage and the date of repacking (if the validity period is shorter than three months, the validity period should be recorded); The validity period should be taken as soon as possible to avoid moisture absorption, mildew, and deterioration. Generally, it should be taken within 3 months as much as possible. If it is the remaining tablet after taking it, the general storage time should not exceed 24 hours;
3. Drugs should be stored in accordance with the conditions specified in the instructions. Some drugs require shading and sealed storage, some require storage at 2-8 °C, and some require storage below 25 °C. For example, acarbose tablets should be stored at a temperature higher than 25 °C and a relative humidity higher than 60% of the unpackaged tablets will change color, such tablets should be taken as soon as possible after they are taken out of the package;
4. Do not take unrecognized tablets casually, you can find a qualified professional pharmacist consult.
What should I do if my pills expire?
Storage time after the drug is opened
Whether the drug is opened or not has any effect on the storage time? Here we will mention a concept – “use period after opening”, which refers to the storage time of the drug under the specified storage conditions after opening. This concept is usually aimed at multi-dose packaged drugs, that is, drugs that contain multiple doses in the smallest sales unit and can be taken multiple times, such as most ophthalmic preparations, nasal preparations, etc. There will be leftovers. The Pharmacopoeia of the People’s Republic of China (2015 edition) states that, unless otherwise specified, ophthalmic preparations, nasal preparations, paints, and film coatings can be used for up to 4 weeks after activation.
Disposal of expired medicines
It is a three-point “poisonous” medicine, not to mention expired medicines, which are thrown into the trash can and pollute the environment, in case they are picked up for use or “recycled” The sale of new medicines is even more harmful.
Many people are helpless and do not know how to deal with expired medicines before they can work at home. At present, the best way to dispose of expired or surplus medicines at home is to recycle them through regular pharmacies and production enterprises for environmental protection. In fact, in order to prevent expired and expired medicines from returning to the market, the food and drug supervision and administration departments of various regions have jointly organized drug business enterprises within their jurisdictions to hold expired and expired medicines recycling activities, and carried out activities such as “cleaning up family medicine boxes” and “recovering expired family medicines”. Continue to establish and improve the recovery mechanism of expired and expired medicines at home, so as to prevent expired and expired medicines from flowing into illegal channels to the greatest extent. The recovered expired and expired drugs will be destroyed in a unified manner under the joint supervision of the food and drug regulatory authorities and drug social supervisors.
In addition, almost all medicines can be disposed of through household waste, including prescription or over-the-counter medicines or supplements, which may be tablets, solutions, drops, patches, creams, inhalers, etc.
You can do this:
1. Mix the medicine with other unwanted things, such as dirt, cat litter, tea or coffee grounds, to avoid exposing the medicine to children , pets, and it is not easy to be found by those who have bad intentions looking for discarded medicines and flow into the market, causing potential safety hazards.
2. Keep the mixture in an airtight container (resealable ziplock bag, empty can, or other resealable container) to prevent drug leakage or spillage.
3. Throw the container into the trash can;
4. Cross out the personal information on the outside of the empty drug packaging to protect personal privacy, and throw away the packaging.
In addition, for certain nebulized inhalation preparations, such as Symbicort, Nobelox, and Fucoidone, which are used to treat asthma or COPD, if they are punctured or thrown into the There may be danger in fire or incinerator. For these inhaled preparations, it is best to contact the corresponding drug distribution company or specialized drug recycling organization for disposal.