How do you store your.......

[Rick]

The military program to test the shelf life of medicines is called the Shelf Life Extension Program. It was conducted in 1986 with the FDA performing the laboratory analysis. The SLEP site is now restricted and you must be registered to access it but when it was open I recall that most of the drugs tested fell into the 15 year shelf life with a few exceptions. The exceptions included liquid antibiotics and liquid vitamins. Having said that, it's important to note that these were unopened original packaging stored in ideal conditions. Once the package is opened the date fell to 1 year. Since then I know they have done studies on Tamiflu as well as Potassium Iodide.

The state stockpiles are rated at 2 years for Cipro and Doxy. I'm not sure why the difference.

I hate making a post like this with no source to refer to but the SLEP site is now restricted. You can do a google on SLEP. There is a lot of documentation out there if you want to wade through it. If anyone has a credible source please post it.

[kyratshooter]

For prescription meds the origional container is the only way to go. If you are emergency hospitalized the facility will not try to identify the pills in your organizer or key chain fob, neither will law enforcement if you are stoped, even if you have the label pasted to your forehead. OTC meds are thrown into the trash immidiately. I had this happen to me during a med emergency. They have no real way of identifying the drug by sight and they will not run lab alnalysis.

If you are on necessary meds for life support you can get into serious trouble if they refuse to give you your meds until all their testing is done and they detirmine what THEY think you need.

Carry your prescriptions in their origional pharmacy containers when traveling. And carry each drug in its own container, not mixed together. LE assumes that any drug is an illigal drug and if the perscription meds are not in their individual containers they ARE being carried illigally. This can be a world of hastle. Drugies come in all ages and all appearances now, they take no ones word for anything, not even your daily dose pill box.

My wife was a med tech for 30+ years and part of her work was doing potency testing for the Army and the hospital where she worked. As they tested and found the drugs still potent they would roll back the expiration dates and print new labels. She said that many of the powdered drugs like penicillin, amoxicillin and things that needed liquid added for use had been declared unlimited shelf life.

She had a computer program on her workstation computer that had shelf life of every drug her hospital had in inventory. Most of the sealed bottles were marked "indefinate". Once opened they anticipated a one year life, but that was just rule of thumb for the hospital.

Some drugs were known to go stale or need refregeration. That was a different deal altogether.

In my experience the dates on OTC meds mean nothing anyway. I take an OTC sinus med that varies in potency with every new bottle. This is espically true in generic forms.

Like Rick stated, finding real information past the "rule of thumb" and what "someone's sister that is a nurse said" is almost impossible. I think part of this is due to the hypocondria present in our society. If there were a website with all this info it would stay jamed and overloaded constantly with needless searches.

[intothenew]

I tried, but failed. Wayback didn't archive that page, or did, then didn't.

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[Rick]

That's a good post, KY. You are right on the money with LE and hospitals.

If you are on a long term drug then save the first bottle when you have your RX refilled. The first bottle has all the information on it so use it to carry your drug to the field. Keep the new bottle at home so you know how many refills you have left but use the older bottle to carry to the field. That way you are legal and everyone knows what the pill is.

[HunterDan]

Those containers with monday-friday are much too bulky for me. I just remember what all my pills looks like, then put them all together in a small plastic container. Keychain pill containers are cool too, just to keep a small amount of the basics with you from day to day...

[colorado plainsman]

One thing I have found that works great is the empty container from a powdered drink called pop fizz. A buddy of mine would bring them to work and the powder comes in a plastic tube and he was just throwing then away. I asked him to save them for me and I collected a good amount. They will hold about 16 advil which is small enough to slip into my pocket no prob. I can cram a ton of OTC meds such as imodium and benadril into my FAK taking up minimal room compared to bulky packaging. They are great for storing matches or any small stuff.

[BornthatWay]

Well as you all know I have a few health problems so my prescription meds are now a total of 24 different ones. Of course some are taken more than once a day. So I think I will soon need a backpack just to carry my prescription meds. LOL! But I do use the individual foil packes for OTC in my FAK. There is website called minmus.biz that Rick told us about that you can order all kinds of OTC meds in single dose foil packets. It is a great place to get all kinds of things in small sizes for your BOB or any other kit,