What will happen if you drink spoiled Chinese medicine?

Traditional Chinese medicine is a drug that can help the human body treat diseases, and the various Chinese medicinal materials have fewer side effects than Western medicine. Now in our country, traditional Chinese medicine is also very popular. Both the elderly and the middle-aged have a greater sense of trust in traditional Chinese medicine than before. Did you know that Chinese medicine also has a shelf life? So, what will happen if you drink Chinese medicine after it has gone bad?

Can I still drink expired Chinese medicine?

As the old saying goes: "Gold in troubled times, treasure in prosperous times". With improved living conditions, precious Chinese medicines such as ginseng, deer antler, cordyceps sinensis, as well as high-end Chinese patent medicines such as Angong Niuhuang Pills and Pian Zaihuang have become private collections in many families. Some ancient Chinese medicinal materials were sold at nearly a hundred times the original price, which made many people who have precious Chinese medicines at home very excited. In addition to speculators who hope to sell at a sky-high price, some people are too superstitious about the "thousand-year-old medicine" and want to keep the medicine for a longer time in the hope of achieving better therapeutic effects.

Expired Chinese patent medicines are hotly speculated

Recently, on some websites selling New Year's goods, there have been a lot of information about selling "Angong Niuhuang Pills" produced before 1993 at crazy high prices. The sellers claim that this medicine is a "rare treasure" that has miraculous effects on various brain diseases. It is best for families with elderly people to prepare one or two pills, which can save lives at critical moments. But in the opinion of experts, these old medicines are not magical.

Angong Niuhuang Pills comes from "Treatise on Warm Diseases" written by Wu Jing in the Qing Dynasty. It is composed of 12 herbs including bezoar, rhinoceros horn, coptis, cinnabar, pearl, realgar, and curcuma. It has the effects of clearing away heat and detoxifying, calming the nerves and opening the orifices. It has a rescue effect on acute phlegm-damp stroke and phlegm-heat stroke. Therefore, it is listed as one of the "three first-aid treasures" for febrile diseases. But it should be noted that Angong Niuhuang Wan cannot cure all types of stroke.

Traditional Chinese medicine classifies stroke into different types. If the patient shows symptoms of "coma", such as facial paralysis, impaired consciousness, high fever, irritability, drowsiness, flushed face, phlegm in the mouth, red tongue coating, etc., it is a phlegm-damp or phlegm-heat type stroke. If you experience these symptoms, take an Angong Niuhuang Pill as soon as possible and then go to the hospital for emergency treatment to buy time for rescue. Some patients show symptoms of deficiency-cold syndrome during stroke, which include pale complexion, thin urine, white and greasy tongue coating, cold limbs, fear of coldness, and constant cold sweats. At this time, taking Angong Niuhuang Pills may be ineffective, and may even be counterproductive. Therefore, as a prescription drug, Angong Niuhuang Pills must be taken under the guidance of a doctor and purchased and taken based on a prescription.

The reason why Angong Niuhuang Pills produced before 1993 are so popular online may be that before 1993, most Chinese medicine factories used natural musk, rhinoceros horn and bezoar as the main raw materials for Angong Niuhuang Pills. However, in 1993, the state issued regulations prohibiting the use of some wild precious animals and plants as medicine. After that, the Angong Niuhuang Pills produced later used artificially synthesized raw materials for these three ingredients.

Although the aged Angong Niuhuang Pills are fried quite hot. But at present, the expiration dates of Angong Niuhuang Pills commonly found on the market are marked on their instructions as 4 years and 60 months respectively. Angong Niuhuang Pills before 1993 can be considered expired medicine. The general Angong Niuhuang Pills are large honey pills (or large honey pills coated with gold), wrapped in beeswax. The natural musk aroma in the medicine is easy to evaporate, and storing it for too long will affect its efficacy. Moreover, even if the ingredients of medicinal materials such as rhino horn will not change, changes in the number of microorganisms cannot be detected by the naked eye. If taken blindly, not only will the efficacy of the medicine be greatly reduced, but it will also be of no benefit to health.