What do you do with medications that don't work?

Just curious, what do you do with medications that don't work?

If you're like me, you have, or have had in the past, bottles of meds that didn't work. You've been a guinea pig for preventatives, abortives, etc., that didn't work for you. I just stow the bottles in a cabinet under my sink, way far back, in the off chance that the dr. tells me, "try the XX again at such-and-such dose" or "try XX again in combination with this". That way I don't have to buy it again.

But inevitably, I end up with bottles of sometimes very expensive, useless medication. Haven't we all experienced this? What do you do with all the meds that didn't work for you? I have vials of migranol, bottles of nuerontin, boxes of maxalt, bottles of fioricet, etc. Some of it's expired, some of it isn't.

What's the safest way to dispose of it? Do pharmacies run a program to do this?

I hate to see it go to waste, too, but I guess that's inevitable. I think it's a darn shame to have wasted so much money being a guinea pig trying to figure out what works and what won't, and tohave all this medication just sitting there that could benefit someone else, but oh well.

I also feel kind of nervous just chucking it in the waste bin, so I want to dispose of it in a responsible way. How do you get rid of your "useless" medications?

I believe you are supposted to flush them or put them in an rubbing alcohol solution to destroy the pills.
It is unsafe to throw out controlled substance medications like fioricet in your trash bin, or really
any medications. People are CRAZY!

When I didn't use my Nucynta I offered it back to my neuro so I could get a new script. That was a class
II controlled substance though, so I believe they would have requested it back anyways, since I was
in need of yet another narcotic.

I'm sure you can give all your unused back to your doctor or pharmacist for safe disposal.

My husband brought a good point up though as I was leaving the office. He said, "Did you watch them
destroy them?" I said no, and he lectured me. He said since it was a morphine narcotic its possible that
one of the receptionists could take them and stick em right in her purse if she wanted to. Thats true.
I don't think it's likely since there were other people standing there who knew of my situation, but
it's a really good idea to watch them dispose of your pills if thats the route you take.

Don't flush them. The fish don't want them either.

Bring them to the Pharmacies. They have proper disposal for them and will be glad to get rid of them safely for you.

Angela

Gia, wow. Your husband makes a good point (though I'm not familiar with the medication you mention). I read a story not too long ago about a pharmacist - not a worker, tech, or other "low level" employee but a pharmacist who faced charges this year of stealing controlled substances from his pharmacy, including Stadol, a med us migraineurs are familiar with.

It makes me wonder too how much ill will I'd be creating with the pharmacy and/or the dr. office if I requested that they dispose of the medication in front of me. I know it's my right to do so, but human nature would create some resentment, I'm sure. I.e., "I don't trust you", etc. How much more difficult would it make relations with the dr. office and pharmacist in the future is something one would have to gamble on, I guess.

I've read before that flushing meds is acceptable. But Angela has a point, the fish don't want them either I just went through my cupboard, and I have 6 bottles of nuerontin, thanks to mail order. That's a lot of medication to flush.

I think I may talk to the pharmacist and ask him if he can dispose of it. Since I don't have any controlled substances at this time, I feel ok with that. I was hoping they had some kind of program in which they sealed it in a mail-back envelope and sent it back to the drug maker or something. Nuerontin isn't a narcotic or anything, so there isn't that to worry about.

I have other stuff, but the nuerontin is over the top. I was on that for a long time as a preventative before determining it didn't work, but kept filling it via mail order.

Can you explain that last option, about mixing it with alcohol to dispose of it?

heres a link to and ehow site that is step by step to dilute your prescriptions in rubbing alcohol to dispose of them

I often have the same dilemma and have decided that the take back program from the local hospital or pharmacy is the right way to go. All meds say to flush them, but who wants those meds in the water supply? Also, don't they leach into the groundwater from the landfill. Yuck.

I wonder what the hospital does with them.

I found a program that would take your unused meds and donate them to clinics in Africa. The FDA has apparently shut this program down. Seems silly to me. Someone ought to be able to use my waste!

M

Thanks Gia.

MaryAnn, that's what I was looking for, a program like that. Too bad the FDA shut it down!

I agree, you do not flush them as they end up in our water system, and in the end in the rivers and oceans.

Here in Canada you are supposed to bring them back to the Pharmacy for a safe disposal.

Risa

Please DO NOT flush your meds! It is so bad for the enviroment and all of those that live in it.

Pharmacies will take your meds from you, but maybe you want to see if anyone on here lives near you and needs them? Just an idea.

I think that's actually illegal, so while the intention is good, the action would probably get me in trouble legally, particularly if I advertised the availability of extra medications online.

Hmmmmmm...really? You mean you can't "gift" someone your meds if they are already being prescribed for them by a doc?

Seems so wrong when someone out there is probably not taking the medication simply because they can't afford it.

Bubbs,
I can see your point if it comes to narcotics or controlled substances all the way.
Anything that can be abused ABSOLUTELY!
But, preventatives or triptans could really help someone out

Milo is right, as long as someone has a prescription for the drugs, I don't see a difference
between that and the program MaryAnn brought up.

I wonder though, if the pharmacy isn't flushing them, what are they doing with them?
Are they taking them and reselling them and making more money on the pills when we
already spent hard earned cash on em? That would make me mad. I'd rather see them
go to the needy for free. I think I'm going to do some research on this...

No, what I mean is that it's illegal to use the internet to broker a medication exchange, even if the medication is a "gift" and no actual money exchange takes place. I don't think it really matters if the medication is a narcotic, or not. It's still a drug deal, per se.

I think there's a difference between a relative giving me her extra imitrex, left-over vicoden (though I'm sure that would raise some eyebrows), or spare tramadol - no one would really know about that except me and my relative - and me posting a message saying "Hey, I have alot of XX and XX that I can't use. Whoever wants it, send me a PM and it's yours." That puts it out there on the world wide web.

I think it's illegal for the same reason the FDA probably shut down the program that took medication donations for Africa - liability. If I gave you my unused nuerontin, for example, and you had a reaction to it, I would be liable for causing that reaction. You could decide to sue me, and that would open a whole can of worms. Or, what if you died? I'm sure I'd be arrested for "dealing" a drug that killed you. Plus, bummer, you'd be dead.

Don't get me wrong. I do wish there were safe a way someone in need could benefit from my unused medication, since it is paid for. Then I could maybe take advantage of the same type of program - I'm low income, too, and some of my medications are stressfully expensive. But I do understand why the laws are there to safeguard us from situations like that. That's why I wish the pharmacuetical companies would spend some time and resources setting up programs to help people, not just take more and more of our money and in the meantime there's more and more waste. I don't think for a minute it couldn't be done, just that it wouldn't be cost effective for the drug companies to do it. Sad but true.

In the meantime, I guess I'm still stuck with about 6 bottles of nuerontin, till I can dispose of it. Don't worry though, I won't flush it. I do agree, the fish don't need it. The one good thing is I have a stockpile of topomax that I'm using, since I'm back on that. Topomax is expensive! I'm glad I have enough to last me about 6 months before I have to actually pay for the refill. LOL

Thanks for all the info.

Agreed about posting a message for all to see saying, "here here left over so-and-so,
what's your address, I'll send it free of charge!" Thats bad news and would get both
you and the recipient in trouble. I would be thinking smart in those terms. I now know you
use topamax, and hey you know what, so do I. It works good for me now, but maybe in the
future it might not. Who knows? I know many members use imitrex and some other
triptans and sometimes I get free samples and don't use em because they don't work.
Ya know? Still a risk and I'm not saying its one i'd take but its just a thought, especially
for those of us who have grown close enough to contact one another through e-mail or
PM and build friendships outside the forum

Good point though, and well said Bubbs!
'specially the, "plus, bummer, you'd be dead."
Ya got a hearty laugh out of me for that one!

Over here the when drugs are returned to pharmacies they are sent for incineration and treated as clinical waste. Much better than landfill or water contamination. Anything with potential for abuse is usually denatured first so it cannot be extracted and abused.

The reason the FDA and other countries will not pass on old used drugs to eg developing countries or those who cannot afford their meds is because the safety and quality of returned drugs cannot be guaranteed. They may have been stored incorrectly eg at extreme temperatures or humidity, they may have been tampered with (maliciously possibly) or they may have been transferred from their original packaging thus rendering expiry dates and batch numbers obsolete and making drug indentification tricky.

No dr or pharmacist would be (should be?) willing to supply meds that they cannot have a reasonable faith in the quality of.

In my opinion is would be hypocritical to expect so much of the drugs we take ourselves (shiny new and with good quality control), and to then expect those that are less well of to 'make do' with used medications and all the potential risks involved. I think it is different if a pharmacy or drug company has a surplus they can donate to eg a developing country, as the supply chain is still controlled and auditable. But patient returns are not.

Equally I would not be prepared, for many reasons, to take medication that was someone elses leftovers. It could be extremely dangerous, not to mention the problems if a dr has not prescribed the drug, checked for interactions or is monitoring the effects.

Amy

Good point Amy!

Yep, I agree with returning them to the pharmacy/chemist to be disposed of correctly

I'm confused about you guys thinking that if you return your narcotics to the office that you should watch them destroy them. There is no way this would be possible in a safe manner...unless they were placed in the sharps container, which I suppose could be a last resort option, but not one we are encouraged to use.

Also, you paid for them, so why would you have to give them back to the office?

When patients return meds to us we bring them to the pharmacy.

It's not our responsibility as patients to make sure the staff are not skimming meds. That is what their employer and governing bodies are for.

Auntiebubbs....totally picking up what you are putting down about the legalities.....still seems like such a waste of hard earned bucks.

When I worked on the units in hospital, even the meds that were individually packaged and unopened got returned if unused and destroyed by pharmacy. I'm talking meds that have no reason to be destroyed at all. Such a waste when you know there are people that need them and would gladly take them.

I think a lot of my confusion comes from being in a different country.

When a patient returns meds to our office, it is because they do not know where else to bring them.

We also sometimes request this of soemone when they have made suicidal threats that involve their meds and they are willing to hand in their "stashed meds".

Most people we see, have their meds payed for by government funding, so asking for them back is not the same as asking someone who paid out of pocket. Either way, we do not tend to ask for any medications back unless it's a life/death situation.

We do encourage every one of our patients to get rid of unused medications every three months.

Patients with young children are encouraged to do it monthly.

The only two options for getting rid of their medications are to return them to pharmacy, or return them to us and we will return them to pharmacy.

I'm still thinking the sharps container is a bad idea, as it would create an even bigger health concern when those that are desperate start digging into sharps containers to find narcotics.

This is a very interesting convo.

Milo,
I gave mine back to my neuros office because it was the third narcotic script since 10/28.
The PA was giving me a hard time giving me a script (she is not my doctor, just the PA.
He has gone on vacation.) so to put her mind at ease I offered them back to her, and
as soon as I did so, she offered me another script I hate that people who abuse drugs
give everyone who needs them a bad rep... They told me they would be recording
that I turned "because they can't, after all, keep handing out controlled substances."

Also, I'd feel better about seeing the meds go directly to the doctors hands, or someone
with a degree. Not a woman at the front desk. I'm not saying I had a problem with it,
although my husband gave me quite a slap on the wrists LOL but he's crazy. We have
this insanely huge dog and he nails our mail slot shut because he thinks someone is going
to break in. Yeah right. If I was a thief, I'd see scrappy doo and go to the next door
Paranoid!

I have heard of a pain management clinic destroying medications in an alcohol solution in
front of patients, which is why I originially suggested that in my first response. I don't know
how frequent that is or even how true it is. I just read it online LOL

PS. How much would it suck if one of the women had taken my Nucynta pills. 49 pills in total
out of a script of 60! I already told them I'd bring them in. Now the doctors office calls me
and asks me why I never brought back the pills but picked up the new script anyways. Then it
would be a back and forth against me and that receptionist that stole my pills. How crappy
would that be? Now my doctor lost trust in me, and she probably won't get fired because
there is no hard core evidence.

All I can say is you are just as likely to have your medications abused by someone with a degree as someone without. Education does not determine addiction.

Absolutely agree with you there, but the receptionist doesn't give me scripts. My doctor does.
I'm not worried about them, I'm worried about me. If my doctor or PA abuses the med,
at least he or she still knows I gave it in and will still give me the meds I need. The receptionist
will just make me look bad, ya know?

When you take the medications, most of them end up in the water system anyway. Either the metabolized products or the drug itself is excreted out by the kidneys and go down the tube.

That's why sensors can detect popular medications in most waterways these days. But they quickly breakdown due to exposure to oxygen and sunlight when dissolved.

We did hospice at our house, and at the end we had a large collection of very powerful/dangerous medications. The hospice nurse came over and told us the official way to dispose of them is to put them down the garbage disposal if you have one or to flush them if you don't. So the nurse and I put them all down the disposal.

You can also return them to a pharmacy, but, in our state, they essentially do the same thing.

Last year, the drug store misfilled one of my scheduled pain drugs, giving me a 90 day supply instead of 30 days. I tried to return them and get just the 30 day supply but they wouldn't take them back. So I called my pain doctor and told him what happened. Nobody seemed worry about it but there is apparently no system in place to handle this situation.

Last summer our town sponsored a get rid of yer meds day. If you had anything you wanted to get rid of you could bring it in, a Pharmacist there would identify what they were and a sheriff deputy would handle the disposal of any controlled substances.

The idea was to keep the medications out of the water system. I don't know how successful it was but I remember reading in the paper that the turnout was good.

Talk about a pill party!