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Out of date insulin

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This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.

Heather77

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
Hi everyone,


Today I went to pick up my insulin from the pharmacy and just on the off chance checked the date on the box, it was 6 months out of date I was completly shocked surely they check dates??? It was dated 05/2012, I feel like with them and my doctors surgery I'm lucky to be alive!!! Has anyone else had this problem?
 
That is pretty bad Heather - never happened to me, I thought they had to clear stocks that were within a certain number of weeks/months prior to expiry 😱
 
So did I, even where I work we use stock rotation and that's on haircare products!, think its all to test us I suppose and our reactions. I was told it never normally happens and that they've checked all their stock when I went to pick up indate insulin, I should hope they do it more regularly than I'm assuming they do now
 
I hope you have taken the stuff back or refused to accept it.
 
Yes I phoned them straight away once I noticed and then after work got it replaced, they were in shock, but as you can imagine I was shock at their negligence!!
 
Yes I phoned them straight away once I noticed and then after work got it replaced, they were in shock, but as you can imagine I was shock at their negligence!!

Yes they were at fault for not checking, bet their wholesaler will get a kick up the b*m as well as the pharmacy would order that in on a patient bases nothing is kept in stock like that due to break ins etc.
 
Annoying to have to return out of date insulin, and it shouldn't have happened. So, probably no risk to your health or life, fortunately.

Actually, as I get 4 boxes of 5 cartridges at a time, I check the dates, so that the insulin will still be be date at least 6 months into the future. However, I have occasionally had a couple of out of date cartridges left, and as I know that our fridge has been OK, I happily use them, just as we often eat food that is a few days past it's use by date - often donated by our neighbour, who sometimes over-caters slightly, and for medical reasons is a bit more cautious about not eating old food. Our ducks often get out of date bread, salad etc, which they regard as treats 🙂
 
Blimey Copepod, amazed.

We are only ever allowed loose with One Month's supply of any prescription medicine, unless the mfrs original packaging is more eg 5 cartridges lasted me approx 50 days, so one box at a time it was. One box of needles though, never got that increased, 150 test strips (on MDI) and either 30 or 28 tablets. Where a brand happens to be on the scrip and they are 28s, but they are using a swap cos they are generic anyway, which happen to be packaged in 30s, they have to cut 2 off.
 
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This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
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