by Kate Johns

Created on: January 29, 2009   Last Updated: March 02, 2011

Taking expired pills is one of the worst things you can do. It is very much like taking someone else's drugs for a heart ailment and seeing how many you can take at one time. You are essentially playing Russian roulette with the medication. Even if the medication is just a few short weeks over the expiration date, it's not a good thing to take the pills.

Before taking any medication read the label or the back of the pill bottle to make certain that you are taking drugs that have not expired. What you are doing to yourself can irreversibly harm you. You could cause yourself a more detrimental illness, a stroke or a heart attack or an irreversible coma. What you are doing is very much like when you see moldy bread in your food drawer and you think, "Hey what is wrong with a little mold on the bread? Isn't it just like putting penicillin into my body?" With the super high prices of bread today you may think you are saving money by eating slightly moldy bread. But, you are making yourself sicker.

In these tough economic times you may be trying to save money anyway you can. A slightly old medication that is another person's medication of let's say an antibiotic can cure you of an illness such as bronchitis. You could be taking a drug that one person is fine with and that you are allergic to. Don't try to save money by taking another person's drugs that are expired.

You may save money by not going to the doctor and by not getting another expensive prescription. But prescriptions that are expired have been set with a certain date for many reasons by the manufacturer. Certainly many people think that the drug companies are just trying to get more money from consumers by placing expiration dates on the pills. But in reality they are trying to save themselves from yet another lawsuit.

Drug companies don't want you to take expired medication. They want you to read the label and take medication in the time frame allowed so that you do get better. This way they get a great reputation and make millions of dollars every year. But with millions of people taking expired medication that means that the drug companies can lose their livelihood by being sued by consumers that took old medication and became seriously ill.

Taking old medication can lead to not getting any better or having the illness rebound on you. Medication that is past it's expiration date is less effective than it originally was. That means it doesn't work as well as it originally did. You may start to feel better, but you in most cases will not knock the infection, virus, or illness out of your body. In a week or two you may just get a rebound sickness with the second illness being worse than the first.

Taking old medication can lead to an entire plethora of complications. By taking medication that is deteriorating in the pill bottle and you may be ingesting pills that have started to turn into other ingredients that can be potentially harmful to your body. You could end up in a coma, or have seizures, or cause yourself to be very ill for a long time.

Always read the pill bottle on the back or on the front of the label for the current expiration date. If you have questions about the accuracy of the expiration date call your pharmacist for helpful advice. Taking old medication is not a wise idea because it will break down over time and be less effective and it can create harmful byproducts. Besides you may be eating or drinking foods and liquids that could react to the breaking down medication that can potentially harm you also. Be careful, always read the expiration date before taking any kind of medication.

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