What occurs to medications when they pass their expiration date?

Question

I have tons of old medications from prescriptions that I never finished, or giant Costco bottles of Advil etc. A doctor that I know told me that the expiration dates mean nothing and that they are just Big Pharma’s way to insert some planned obsolescence into their products.

Is this true? If not, what actually happens to the medications after their expiration dates?

In: Chemistry

Answer 1

It depends on the medication usually it just starts losing some of its effectiveness but nothing too serious, that being said my mom once took some expired pills and got all dizzy and nauseated