Methadone Takehome Bottles Reused

I just discovered from the dosing nurse at my methadone clinic that they reuse the take-home bottles. Is this acceptable practice? Since starting treatment at this clinic (moved from a nearby state), i have had continuing colds and other maladies, maybe from contaminated bottles.
What should i do? This clinic is extremely small and appears to suffer from lack of funds.

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It really depends how they are doing it. As long as the bottles are cleaned and sterilized and/or they are reusing your same bottles, then they can legally do so.

The only way it would be considered unacceptable is if they are not properly cleaning the bottles in between uses and are giving you dirty bottles that someone else has just brought back and used. This would be against sterile medical practices.

However, if they are cleaning them or giving you bsk your own bottles, then they can do so.

If you are worried about them not cleaning and sterilizing them, you can contact the U.S. FDA and report your concerns, so they can look into it.

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thanks. If they were giving me back my own bottles i wouldn't be too concerned but they remove the labels after dosing and place all the bottles in a box. so its unlikely we get our own bottle back. I've been in the clinic and have never seen any facility for sanitizing plastic . plastic bottles, whatever that would be. I assume the lids would have to be sanitized also as these are place on the bottles after dose is taken from bottle. Just wondered if any other clinics reuse plastic bottle in this manner. At my last program before i moved here, all takehome bottle were discarded

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....also , I beleive this is a state Dept of Health issue(VT)

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Ted, if they are doing that, then yes, I believe you have serious reason to be concerned and should report it to the proper authorities, so it can be checked out.

I believe Malakite is correct and it should be your state department of health, since they usually handle such problems and will also respond faster than any federal agency, which is usually spread very thin and with limited time.

Plastics are especially bad to reuse, without proper sanitation, since they are porous and tend to slowly absorb germs and bacteria over time.

I'm not sure what state you're in, but a quick Google search should pull the website for your state department of health and the relevant contact information.

https:/­/­rxchat.com/­wiki/­Methadone/­

Does anyone else have any comments or experiences to add?

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At my clinic they do take back our bottles to recycle them. I, Myself know that they do put them all in a box and the company who makes the bottles comes every so often to pick up boxes of used take home bottles. They are not just sterilized. The actually go thru the whole process of recycling. which i believe they have to melt down the plastic and make new bottles basically. every bottle i get for take homes look brand new. im sure they would start to look worn and messed up if they did just steralize them and use them again. dont u think?
so hopefully this is what is happening with your used bottles also....i would think it would be against the law to just sterilize and reuse used bottles.

I did get this information from the nurses and my counsler at my clinic. all there stories matched up so hopefully this is the truth, it seems to be correct in my opinion.

hope you get better malakite and recover from the colds

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My chemist takes my bottles and refills them there and then. Today I had my takeaway dose and in the next couple of hours I slowly got sicker and sicker. A bad headache, all my muscles started aching getting worse then I started with the shakes and my kidneys were really painful as well. I felt like I had, had a dirty shot. I remember that feeling very well, after drinking allot of water and having a couple of pain killers, and laying down in a dark room, the symptoms slowly subsided. I am still suffering with a very mild headache, so I believe my methadone was contaminated by being put in to unsterilised bottles.

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