• The Food and Drug Administration confirms the expiration dates that are printed on packages of over-the-counter drugs.
• Several factors, like someone’s age and the type of medication, play into whether or not it’s safe to take a medication past its expiration date.
• Experts recommend cleaning out your medicine cabinet before cold and flu season begins, so you’re confident in the safety of medications you have on hand.

Can you use medication past its expiration date?

As the U.S. moves into the fall and winter, it’s time to dust off the medicine cabinets and take stock of your seasonally appropriate medicine supply in preparation for cold and flu season. But before you restock over old medication, you may need to throw certain pills out—there’s a chance some medications might’ve expired.

Over-the-counter drugs, such as ibuprofen and acetaminophen, have expiration dates printed on the packages that are confirmed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

But, experts say that in a pinch, someone could take recently expired cold and flu medications to get relief from their symptoms.

“There are some prescription medications that are actually harmful and could be toxic for the human body [after expiration],” Stacey Curtis, PharmD, community pharmacist and clinical associate professor at the University of Florida College of Pharmacy, told Health.

“But for over-the-counter medications, generally speaking, they’re just not going to be as effective as they were when they were in date,” she said.

There are several factors—a person’s age, the type of medication, how it’s been stored, and how expired it is—that can make taking expired medication more risky.

Here’s what experts had to say about over-the-counter drugs’ expiration dates, what happens when you take expired medication, and how to stay prepared for cold and flu season.

How Do Medication Expiration Dates Work?

Unlike the expiration dates on most food products, the FDA has a hand in regulating medications’ shelf life.

Curtis explained that companies have to submit stability testing data to the FDA that shows how long over-the-counter medications are good for.

“That stability testing data essentially says, ‘We’ve tested this medication, and this is how long the medication is stable before it starts losing its effectiveness or becoming potentially harmful,’” she said.

After the expiration date passes, the drug company can’t guarantee that the over-the-counter drug will be completely effective and safe. The FDA encourages people to not use any expired medications.

But these expiration dates aren't always so black and white.

For some medications, Curtis said, people can probably use them for a few months after they expire—the medication likely just won’t work as well. 

This is probably safest in regards to “tablets and capsules, anything that has that compressed dry powder,” Ashley Garling-Nañez, PharmD, clinical assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy, told Health.

However, when people take over-the-counter medications too long after the expiration date, that could become risky. Drugs that have been expired for many months could, at best, do nothing, and at worst, could cause negative reactions, Curtis said. 

Unfortunately, there’s no good way to determine when exactly a medication will stop being effective or safe. But Curtis warned that even three to four months post-expiration date may be “pushing it.”

For certain over-the-counter cold and flu medications, the expiration date should be followed as directed, Garling-Nañez said.

“Anything that’s going to be in liquid form—including eye drops, ear drops, nasal sprays, and liquid cough and cold that you swallow—those are not going to be safe, primarily because they have a tendency to grow bacteria,” she explained.

Products that contain aspirin may also be unsafe after the expiration date, she added, as that drug has a tendency to break down.

Determining whether to take expired cold and flu medication may also come down to who needs it, said Garling-Nañez. Children, older people, and those with other health conditions may want to avoid all expired over-the-counter drugs to err on the side of caution.

Where the medication is stored is yet another factor to take into consideration when determining if a drug is safe to take. If drugs are stored incorrectly, they may become ineffective before their expiration date, experts said.

“Something that is in a windowsill or gets a lot of sunlight, or if you kept it in the car, or even in a backpack or purse that you leave in the trunk, those are actually going to expire faster,” Garling-Nañez said. “The heat will break down the medication much quicker.”

The same goes for drugs that are stored in a bathroom.

“[A shower] creates a very warm, moist environment, which [can] affect the medications that are in that bathroom,” Curtis said.

While there’s no exact rule of thumb when it comes to figuring out if an expired medication is okay to take, if a drug appears to be crumbling, has a strange color, or looks “irregular” at all, it should be thrown out, Garling-Nañez advised.

It’s also important to dispose of expired medications properly. The process differs by state, Curtis said, but people can look up drug take-back locations via an FDA website.

Otherwise, people can simply throw them away, though there are some steps to take beforehand.

“We tend to want to mix [expired drugs] with something that’s not very palatable for animals and people. So mix it with coffee grounds, kitty litter, something that [you wouldn’t want] to ingest,” Garling-Nañez said. “Dispose of them in the regular trash. And we do that because we don’t want them getting into our water.”

Beyond that, she added, nasal saline, in any form available over the counter, can help keep the nose clean. People should also have a cough suppressant, decongestant, or antihistamine for runny nose, said Curtis.

“Find your go-tos that you like, that have worked for you in the past. And if at the very least, make sure that those are updated,” Garling-Nañez said.

Beyond over-the-counter medications, there are a number of other strategies that people can use to make sure they’re prepared for the cold and flu season. 

“The number one thing that people should be doing is keeping their hands clean,” Curtis said. “Continue to use hand sanitizer as often as you can with regard to when you’re coming in and out of public places.”

Other simple measures such as staying home when you’re sick and getting vaccinated against respiratory viruses can help a person stay on top of seasonal illnesses.