There are two reasons why I was certain her medication was still okay to take. Taking Expired Medications - Not a Good Idea It was nice and calm at the pharmacy last night (for once) to the point where I had a good 10 minutes of downtime to help a patient out.

Retail pharmacy staff will go through all of the drug bottles on the shelves and send back any of them that are going to expire within at least. In the erroll where the manufacturer's expiration date comes first (before the 1 year mark), that is the date that is put on the bottle. The purpose of the patient's call was to figure out if her medication had expired. I could see from her profile that she had picked it up 2 months ago. When a drug is dispensed at a retail pharmacy, the medication is given a 1 year expiration date unless the manufacturer's bottle it came from says a date sooner than that. (this is a general rule - some states have different laws so be aware!) The expiration date can be found on the label that is on your medication bottle.

She had some Valtrex she wanted to take, but she was worried it may have gone bad.