Expired medication

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I have a few students who have expired emergency medications. If your student were to need their medication, would you still give it? Or just call 911 and hope they arrive on time.

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Specializes in ortho, hospice volunteer, psych,.

I just checked with a cousin who is a pharmacist. He said if it's "newly expired" (his words) he'd go ahead and give a seizure med, an asthma med, or maybe something for ADHD, ADD etc. if the child is or will get very hyper without it. Any other meds... no way.

One dose, one time. Call the parent and tell them the med has expired and send an email plus a note home with the child. The dose was one time and MUST be replaced by the next school day or children's services will be notified.

The above is from cousin____.

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I have 3 expired epi pens and 1 bottle of expired zyrtec. I'm worried that these kids will need them and I won't have a new one. I've notified parents multiple times. I get the same "Oh, ill be in tomorrow with a new one." line. Really makes me nervous.

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For the EpiPens, you can print off a coupon for the child and send it home with them. As long as they don't have Medicare, Medicaid, or TriCare, they should be able to use this coupon along with their insurance and have zero copay. https://activatemysavings.com/epipen/

(When it gets to the "which best describes you" question, just select "I care for someone..." and it'll let you print off a coupon. You don't have to enter the child's name or anything.)

You might also be able to get EpiPens stocked in your school, which are primarily meant to be for newly discovered allergic reactions, but can in an emergency be used for someone who has a known allergy but no current EpiPen on hand.

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Specializes in School Nursing, Public Health Nurse.

I would check with your State regulations on it as well. I know at my last District we had an expired Epi Pen for a student will a ton of different allergies and she was deathly allergic. Mom kept giving us the run around. The Principal called mom stating that if she did not send a new Epi Pen after the winter break the daughter will not be able to start school. The student came to school the day before the start of break with 2 brand new Epi-pens.

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Specializes in kids.

I would tell them I tossed it and there IS no expired med.......

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