This Saturday is National Prescription Drug Take Back Day. A family medicine physician discusses why it's also a great time to spring clean your medicine cabinet.
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CLEVELAND - April 27th is National Prescription Drug Take Back Day.
According to Neha Vyas, MD, a family medicine physician with Cleveland Clinic, it’s the perfect time to purge those old prescriptions.
“Expired medications have the potential for becoming more toxic and potentially interfering with other new medicines that you may be taking,” she explained. “On the flip side, expired medications may lose their potency and not work as effectively.”
Dr. Vyas said it’s a good idea to check expiration dates, especially on liquid antibiotics, insulin and blood thinners, as these medications may do more harm than good once past their prime.
In fact, poisoning can occur from accidentally taking medication that’s been lingering around the medicine cabinet too long.
Dr. Vyas also reminds us to take prescriptions the way they were intended.
“If you have kept a whole bunch of drugs from 10 years ago, that’s generally not a good thing because you may need to talk to your doctor about what the best and most appropriate medicine and most recent medicine is for you,” she advised.
She adds that it’s always a good idea to bring medications to your annual exam so your doctor can help you decide which prescriptions to throw away.
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