Economy/reserved coumadin

[catwoman]

I have at least 18 months of warfarin stockpiled (I'm waiting for an A-bomb to hit ).
As long as the tablets don't crumble, they should be OK.

I went through my cats' medicine cabinet yesterday and tossed several Rxes that were outdated -- because they were ophthalmic products. I do not keep anything ophthalmic beyond it's USE BY date.

 

[netmiff]

"I guess my point is that there's no magical date where a pill becomes unusable. It's not like milk, where there's active biological processes going on. Logic dictates that if you keep the pills in a dry environment away from the elements, they'll keep their form and chemical structure."

Tetracycline is the only one I know about, but it degrades in a relatively short time, maybe 2 years, and becomes a relatively potent central nervous system poison. I am writing this from memory, so some of the details may be wrong, but the basic facts are right - an old antibiotic can be harmful !!!!!! If someone has more time than I have right now, maybe they can check this out.