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Post by olebama on Jul 19, 2020 10:04:27 GMT -7
I have been asked if OTC drugs could/should be vacuum sealed for long term storage. I have been wrestling with this. On one hand, I would think it would prolong storage. However, I also think that opening a bottle and then putting them in a vacuum sealed bag would be worse.
for clarification, we are talking about unopened OTC drugs (aspirin, ibuprofen, etc). What are your thoughts?
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Post by woodyz on Jul 19, 2020 13:17:35 GMT -7
I think light, moister and heat are the biggest threats to shelf life, for OTC drugs. Mayo Clinic recently published an article, “Extending Shelf Life Just Makes Sense“. www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(15)00667-9/pdfThey concluded that most medications, properly stored, remain viable well beyond their listed shelf life.Store them in the cool and dark and keep out moister and they should keep a long time. One way to keep out moister is to vacuum seal, so there you go. In my emergency first-aid kits, I vacuum seal all meds, band-aids, rubber gloves, etc. to keep out air and keep them dry, then store them below 77. These I will keep for 5 years. When I can't control the temp., like in the trunk of the car or in a truck box, I change out the sealed bags every time I have a birthday, every year, my birthday makes it easy to remember and its just one of a list of things I do then. I don't open or unpack age anything until I use it. The above does not apply to liquid, insulin, eye drops and antibiotics which I discard at the expiration date. Insulin I keep in the fridge, although it says I don't need to. I have a sharps container where I put used needles, etc. and we take it to the place that does my inr about once a month and exchange it for an empty one. Flush list www.fda.gov/drugs/disposal-unused-medicines-what-you-should-know/drug-disposal-flush-potentially-dangerous-medicine#FlushListNON-FLUSH LIST www.fda.gov/drugs/disposal-unused-medicines-what-you-should-know/drug-disposal-dispose-non-flush-list-medicine-trashI have a plastic box about 8"wx10"lx6"d I keep my prescription meds in the prescription bottles in, with a seven day pill box marked AM and PM, because I take 5 pills in the AM and 4 in the PM. But the dose of one is different on Wends and Sunday, so it gets pre-loaded once a week, by my Wife and its easy for her to see if I forgot to take something, which I do about once a week. The prescriptions are either 30 day or 90 day, so there is no real expiration.
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Post by olebama on Jul 20, 2020 16:37:56 GMT -7
Thanks for the info. I agree with light, moisture and heat being the issues. My particular question is regarding a sealed unopened bottle. Should I open it and vacuum seal the pills/tablets? Should I just leave them in the bottle? SHould I vacuum seal the closed and sealed bottle? (or would the pressure difference cause the seal on the bottle to fail?
This is what I am wrestling with. I understand about light and heat also.
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Post by woodyz on Jul 20, 2020 18:01:36 GMT -7
If your worried about the seal, tape it, the vacuum seal doesn't pull enough to bother a taped seal or blister packs. mine have always vacuumed and sealed with no problem. But maybe your vacuum sealer machine sucks harder then mine.
Sometimes the juice will want to pull out of the hamburger etc, but I've never had a problem with dry stuff and now I just put stuff like meat in the freezer fist for an hour or so and it pulls down fine. We don't butcher any more but we still buy meat in bulk then repackage it with the vacuum sealer into serving sized packages. Our butcher shop will package it like 4 pork chops to a package or 1# packages if we ask them to, they use freezer paper and I just vacuum seal the package, but mostly we just buy bulk and repackage with the vacuum sealer. Wife wants to get a newer/heavier duty sealer machine then the one we have, so we may get one soon.
Anyone have any recommendations?
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Post by olebama on Jul 29, 2020 14:49:40 GMT -7
Thanks for the info, hadn't thought of taping the seal.
We have been using an old food saver. Recently, I thought that I would hate for this thing to go down in the middle of putting up a bunch of veggies. So we went and bought a "spare". We got the Food Saver FM2435-ECR. We are using this one and put the old one back for a spare. The new one seems to work pretty good. I don't have enough info to "recommend" it. For what we do, it does the job (at least, so far).
Your mileage may vary. The check is in the mail. Let sleeping bags lie. You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be lead.
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Post by marc on Jul 30, 2020 15:11:36 GMT -7
Your mileage may vary. The check is in the mail. Let sleeping bags lie. You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be lead. Lol
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Post by geron on Jul 31, 2020 3:26:38 GMT -7
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