Please I just got my antiviral drugs for 2 months - I just noticed both containers are supposed to expire on FEBRUARY 2025 and I am supposed to take them from now 25 of JANUARY 2025 till MARCH.
Please my question is can I go ahead with taking them till March or I should return both or one container?
Does the expiration date don’t have any effect on the effectiveness of antivirals ?
Please your advice, suggestions and kind words will be greatly appreciated and needed.
Hi @John2,
I will keep one bottle, speak to the pharmacy, and see if you can get the second bottle exchanged. I have never dealt with this before, but we are thought that expiration dates meant something. I don’t think I will be comfortable taking an expired prescription, especially when I don’t know what effect that will have. Please reach out to your pharmacist about this issue. Best, Bansah1
Yes, agreed that you shouldn’t be taking expired medication. In many cases, the active component degrades over time meaning you are not getting the right dose, which is an issue in both suppressing the virus and allowing resistance to occur.
I am beyond grateful for your added knowledge and words to my question and worry at hand.
Well I am very worried, just got back from the pharmacy and was told the medication will still be effective and no need for me to be worried.
I was informed that normally medication stays for more 3 months after date of expiration before it expires. 3 different pharmacist confirmed and said the same thing.
I got back with the 2 bottles - still worried hahah and will keep asking just to be sure!
Thank you so much for your time, and knowledge and I look forward to hearing more knowledge or information from the community about this.
Thomas is right. The shelf-life of drugs has to be measured by the manufacturer, and the expiration date is set to ensure that people are taking medicine that has not degraded with time. That doesn’t mean that the day before the expiration date the drug is perfect and the day after it is useless—quality declines with time and storage conditions. Unless otherwise instructed by the doctor, pharmacist, or drug label, store medication in a cool, dry place in tightly sealed containers.
For the HBV nucleos(t)ide analogs, Thomas is also correct that decline in drug quality will lead to increased replication of HBV in the presence of inadequate concentrations of the drug, which promotes evolution of drug resistance.
I am beyond grateful for your response and knowledge.
I think after reading everyone’s knowledge and kind words plus the same information I got on the internet I will not be taking the second bottle, I will go back to request for another after a month with the first bottle.
I recommend checking the expiration date on your medicine. Most pills have shelf-lives of at least 1 year. You can also ask your pharmacist if it that date is not printed on the medicine bottle. No need to pay for the same meds twice if the expiration date has not passed!
I am beyond grateful for your time, help, and knowledge with my question/concern, it means so much to me!
Please find attached below photo of the expiration date on my medication container for your perusal.
@john.tavis i think this is what my pharmacist was trying to explain to me that my medication has 3 more months shelf life after date of expiration but it’s totally new information to me because we are all told to discard expired medications/products.
@ThomasTu Thank you so much for sharing that article with me, I read everything and it provided some weight to my pharmacist’s words.
Please for final confirmation do you all think I should go ahead with taking it or discard it ? Thank you so much for your time, knowledge and help. It means a lot to me.
My default recommendation is not to take it much past March 1 2025 based on the general principle of not taking expired medications. However, your pharmacist likely knows more about the shelf life of this medication (shelf life varies from medication to medication), so if s/he says it can last a month or 2 longer, then I would go with that recommendation. Note that the expiration date on the custom printed label is precisely 1 year from the prescribing date, which makes me think it is an automatically applied date. The real expiration date for that lot of medication would be printed on the package your pharmacist received.
Although I think you are likely to be ok with a month or two extra with this specific bottle of medication, I think it is really important not to generalize this recommendation and think that all medications can be used for a while after they expire. That would be dangerous. My recommendation in this particular case is based on the pharmacist’s comment, and s/he certainly has more information on that lot of drug than I do.
Thank you so much for your time and concerns with the situation, it means a lot to me.
Yeah I think the pharmacists were all speaking out of the Custom printed label of the package/medication but I am still a not skeptical so I have decided to go back there and ask more questions and speak to different people including people at the counseling sessions. Just trying to be safe and not cause more damage.
If I get more insight and confirmation from them and different people then I can go ahead with it or request for another container.
Yes this is my first time hearing about shel life and all and I do not generally imply this to other medications.
Thank you so much for your thoughts, concerns, time and support. It means a lot to me.
I will keep you all posted if there is a new developments.
I’d think the licensed pharmacists on the ground that you talk to have the most informed say on these sorts of things, compared to people on the internet who may not have the most up to date or surrounding context in many of the situations.
I visited the hospital yesterday, spoke to the doctor in charge and he asked me not to take it and come back after one month for the second bottle.
My love and gratitude to @Bansah1@john.tavis@ThomasTu for promptly giving your precious feedbacks, knowledge and kind words.
Thank you so much for your time and words, it means a lot to me.
