[Svetlana]

My prescription has a warning advising against prolonged exposure to direct and/or artificial sunlight.

What amount of time is considered prolonged?

Why is it necessary to avoid sunlight? Does usage of this medication make me more susceptible to sunburn?

[Leonid]

Triamterene has been known to cause photosensitivity reactions in some patients. This means the drug may cause your skin to be more sensitive to sunlight than it is normally. Exposure to sunlight, even for brief periods of time, may cause a skin rash, itching, redness or other discoloration of the skin, or a severe sunburn.

To prevent the chance of a photosensitivity reaction, it is advised that patients stay out of direct sunlight, particularly between the hours of 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m., especially in summer.
Wear protective clothing, including a hat. Also, wear sunglasses.
Apply a sun block product that has a skin protection factor (SPF) of at least 15. Apply a sun block lipstick that has an SPF of at least 15 to protect your lips. Artificial sunlight may also cause the reaction so do not use a sunlamp or tanning bed or booth.

If you have a severe reaction from the sun, advise your doctor.

[Faust]

Hi,
I, too am on Triametrene, also HCTZ, as the combination drug Maxzide. Every single time I go out in the sun, I get red bumps on my lower arm. I'm going to start wearing long-sleeved shirt, although we live in a hot, humid climate!!
Good Luck!

[Svetlana]

The expiration date is usually found on the foil (if you have it in aluminum foil wrap and the edge is still with you). If in a bottle, it should be on the label.

Generally, if you can't tell whether a drug is expired or not, the best thing is to flush it down the toilet unless this means of disposal is prohibited by law. Some drugs convert into poisonous substances when they deteriorate while some could attract growth of micro-organisms, e.g., fungus, which is very difficult and expensive to treat.

Hope this helps.

[saddyli]

In that case it would be better to know the effects of medication which are accidentally taken without noticing the expiry date. Honestly speaking I only know this much if a medicine is used after its expiry period it wont have any effectiveness. If there is anything else apart from what I said it would be good to know, this happened to me when I completely overlooked the date of an eye drop and went on administering it till the course was prescribed. Actually that medicine was previously prescribed to someone else in the family and I thought of using it instead of getting a new one. Would this lead to further deterioration of my eyes.