Is an expired 10/650 Lorcet from 2001 safe to take still?

[Ericjones03]

Hey all, thanks for your time in reading this...
Back in 2000 and 2001 I used to have horrible back pain, most likely from years of bad posture, I got some Lorcet (10/650) prescribed to me to help out with it and that did the job, I only used a few pills from the bottle and then forgot about it as the pain went away. It's been sitting in the original container in my medicine cabinet for a good 17-18 years now and I'm starting to feel something in my back after getting hurt moving furniture the other day. I was going to take one or two to get me back to normal but I'm not sure if it's still safe to use. Thanks for anyone's help.

 

[Lil'LinaptkSix]

Hi.
Although the meds may be safe to ingest: They may not be as potent as originally designed... specially if stored in a humid environment (as a med cabinet in bathroom).
There are other alternatives to pain management besides ingesting out-of-date meds if one is worried about the safety of the pills.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Welcome to BL Eric!

I’m going to move this to BDD

NMI->BDD

 

[Keif' Richards]

If we're assuming that the pills have been stored in reasonably stable conditions then it's highly unlikely that they are unsafe in any way and unlikely that they have lost any significant degree of potency. I'm only closing this because I consider this answer to be fairly definitive. We know that drugs do not commonly, spontaneously change into harmful substances for no reason, so I feel safe in this assumption.