Expired Bentyl

Can I take Bentyl that expired 8/10, 9 months ago?

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As with anything, whether it be drugs, food or drink, you should not take them if they are out of date. The date is on the packet for your safety, and you could experience more adverse effects from taking out of date medication.

Also some medications can begin to loose their effectiveness passed the expiration date, so it would be best in your case to just request a new prescription given the length of time that it has been out of date. However, if you'd really like to be certain about the pills degradation, you would have to take them to a lab and have them evaluated for quality assurance. I don't know how to go about that procedure, but I am sure it will be cheaper and less stressful to just get a refill.

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Check with your pharmacist about taking expired medications. In most cases, it's fine to take medications well past their expiration dates. According to the Harvard Medical School Family Health Guide, a study was done on the efficacy of long expired medications. With few exceptions, most prescription and OTC medications were still effective a decade after they had expired. The exceptions were rather obvious ones--liquids, nitro, insulin, and a few others. So, before you throw out anything expensive, go ahead and check with a good pharmacist. He'll tell you what you can and cannot take. And, no matter what, the medicine doesn't turn poisonous. What it does, in the worst case scenario, when it gets old, is lose a bit of its strength (don't we all).

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This is not always true. Most medications will only lose strength. There are some commonly prescribed medications, however, that will turn toxic over time, and should not be used past their expiration. Doxycycline and tetracycline, for example, can quickly become toxic to the kidneys and cause serious health problems if taken after the expiration date.

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