What do you do with outdated prescription medications?

[undeterred]

I know there is a lot of concern about things getting back into the water supply. I tend to keep things around for a really long time, then take the labels off and throw them in the garbage.

:shrug:

[saltpoint]

1. We mail ours to Rush Limbaugh. That guy will swallow anything.

[elehhhhna]

21. Send 'em to Cindy MCCain

[hlthe2b]

23. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. . . .

Out of bounds, that one.

[LaurenG]

2. Break them up pour water on them or add them to nasty garbage and throw them away

:hi:

[seriousstan]

5. Agreed, if you have pets, put them in the waste bag.

[MercutioATC]

3. With the exception of some antibiotics that can turn toxic when expired, I keep 'em.

...you never know when they might come in handy.

I wouldn't advise this for people who take a lot of prescription meds because of possible drug interaction issues, but I rarely take prescription meds.

[Tammie]

4. Toss them in with some used cat litter

or with some coffee grounds.

[madmom]

7. I use my used cat litter... sprinkle it around the garden, it keeps rabbits away.

[lonestarnot]

22. mmmm kittymatoes.

NOT. sorry madmom.

[madmom]

31. You don't put it ON your plants, you put it AROUND your plants, jeesh!

[napi21]

6. We don't have very many. Maybe 1 a year. My hubby's nitro glycerin.

It has to be replaced every 12 months. I usually toss it in the garbage with the rest of the potato skins and kitchen garbage. It's a very small bottle and sure isn't a marketable "HIGH" for anybody!

[Tindalos]

8. Take them back to the pharmacy

Pharmacies will usually take old medications and dispose of them properly to avoid dangerous ones getting into the water supply.

[pitohui]

12. thanks tindalos this is good information

i have some leftover antibiotic -- a drug that should not be stored for long periods of time

i will do as you advise to dispose of it

[TahitiNut]

14. That sounds like the only responsbile approach, to me.

Clearly, we can't blindly rely upon such business to always "do the right thing" but it's a far superior approach, if almost only due to its simplicity, than the far more error-prone reliance on every household to "do the right thing."

[madokie]

20. twenty or so years ago one of the guys I knew at the time

he and his wife had it down to a science as to what drugstore threw out their pills on what day and they would go pilfer through their garbage and sometimes find something that was good for a buz. I'm sure the drugstores are a lot more careful now though.

[Booster]

28. Check with your pharmacies. I found one that takes them over to

Africa where they are desperately needed. Throwing them in the trash and they will just end up in landfills and eventually into our water supply. Bad idea to throw them in the trash or flush them down the toilet.

[tridim]

9. This might sound strange, but I've never purchased a prescription drug

37 years and I haven't given big pharma one cent, knock on wood.

So my method for disposal is to not buy them in the first place. :)

[pitohui]

11. you do understand that people do not choose to be ill?

perhaps the boasting about one's health is better done elsewhere than in a thread that will mostly be viewed by people who have experienced significant pain, injury, or illness

[tridim]

13. Sorry, I didn't mean it that way.

However, I do believe that in general Americans take too many prescription drugs that they don't need. Not to diminish the people who really do need these type of drugs.

[Vanje]

10. I eat all of mine.

Or share them with friends

[donheld]

15. :feed'em to the cat

:D

[Forkboy]

16. Hand them out at Halloween.

"Here ya go little Johnny, have some Seroquel...your mom will thank me later."

:evilgrin:

[laylah]

17. There was an article just about that

in our local paper earlier this week. Many city's water has been tested and found to be contaminated with different drugs. It was suggested you call your pharmacy and see if they have a safe disposal program, and if not, if they know who does. Flushing puts them in the water, putting them into the landfill, they eventually find their way back into the earth, groundwater.

Here's part of that article:
Pharmaceutical compounds are most likely present in the Mississippi River that provides drinking water for Quad-City residents, but there are no federal requirements for system operators to test for them.

A 2001 study in Iowa found small concentrations of pharmaceutical and other compounds — measured in parts per billion or trillion — in nearly all river and stream samples taken at 10 cities across the state. Although neither Davenport nor Bettendorf was included in the study, most of the waterways sampled eventually empty into the Mississippi.

“They are certainly there,” said Dana Kolpin, a research hydrologist for the U.S. Geological Survey office in Iowa City who led the study. “Because of its size, you would probably find fewer of them and in lower concentrations in the Mississippi, but they would probably stay there longer.”

http://www.qctimes.com/articles/2008/03/11/news/local/doc47d727661bbc7449382593.txt

[Warren Stupidity]

18. Why take the labels off?

[undeterred]

26. Confidentiality and so people wont take them

[mondo joe]

19. Just put em in the candy dish for when we have company.

[man4allcats]

24. I usually just eat them with a little Jack Daniels.

Some combinations I've tried actually get you off, although it might have just been the Jack Daniels. I'm not sure.

[riderinthestorm]

25. One thing I've learned from vets

is that prescriptions stay viable for a whole lot longer than you'd believe. With large livestock it's common for the vet to leave 500 ml of penicillin for the owner to inject over the course of a week for example, so we always have leftover. Vets don't make it public knowledge but many drugs stay viable for a few years after their expiration as they've told us on the qt. I discovered a container of phenylbutazone (a common prescription anti-flammatory) in a tack trunk that was 10 years past the prescription date and the vet told me it was fine.

I don't throw out drugs anymore that I'm reasonably certain are still okay, and that I KNOW we'll need in the future, like pink-eye meds or prescription strength poison ivy anti-itch cream etc. They cost a fortune to replenish. I'm almost suspicious now that big pharma sets the expiration date artificially early to keep us spending, spending, spending....

You have to have your own comfort level on saving and using a drug past it's date so I would never encourage anyone else to do this. I'm just putting it out there as an FYI.

[Jeanette in FL]

27. I don't throw any drugs away either

It started just like your experience. One of my dogs had an emergency, I called the vet, she could not come to my place. She asked if I had any Benadryl in the house, I did but it had expired by 2 years. She said "It's fine" Told me how much to give the dog and to call her back in a few hours.

In a few hours, the dog was fine with the dosage of Benadryl she told me to give.

Another time was with my horses, different Vet. Bute was the medication, also expired. When I told him it was expired, he also said "It's fine, give the horse standard dosage".

That got me thinking. When I fill a prescription, the pharmacist fills the bottle from either a large container or canister. He puts a date of expiration, usually 1 year from purchase. Now you know that the container or canister will not be empty tomorrow or next week, yet if you filled your prescription it would be from 1 year from the time of your purchase.

I read an article that the military did an experiment with all the drugs they have in their possession and found even drugs that had expired 10 years earlier still had an effective and potency as the new ones. There have also been experiments done by John Hopkins as well.

So I never throw any prescription or OTC drugs away and have used them. This is a personal opinion and personal choice.

[ldf]

29. expiration date

is probably more about profit than anything else.

:shrug:

[undeterred]

30. Scarey story on vet meds;

Some friends of mine had a dog which had a stroke. They got some meds to treat it, but the dog eventually died.

A year later the husband took some allergy meds on a Saturday morning and shortly afterwards he started having heart palpitations and faster respirations. He was 53 and a lifelong athlete, a tennis coach. He got scared and went to the ER where they called his wife. They started doing a workup and asking lots of questions. He said he took some of his wifes allergy meds which were on the counter. Well they asked his wife to bring in the meds, so she brought in everything that was on the counter.

Apparently he had taken the dead dogs stroke meds, which explained all his symptoms. For about an hour there, he thought he was having a heart attack. The ER said, we'll take those for you.