Quote from: Rob on November 03, 2010, 12:03:39 PM
My wife who is a nurse...told my son to keep using the vial ... she seemed to think it was okay
A vial is not an ampule, there's an extremely important difference in that an ampule once opened can't be reclosed, and a vial can't be opened to begin with.
Vials have a snap off top with a sealed membrane that you pierce with a needle, so the contents make no serious contact with the outside world.
Ampules are sealed containers, usually glass but sometimes plastic, that's broken open, once open they will be exposed to the atmosphere forever, open for particles to contaminate the contents.
Vials come in single dose and multidose forms, it's recommended any from a single dose vial be discarded after use, multidose vials usually have an expiry period once opened.
In general however, outside of a few exceptions, you should discard unused medication unless it's said to do otherwise. Vials usually say if they're single or multidose, ampules I'd imagine are never multidose.
These are vials, note that the Heparin vial has the ok for multidose use, but the sterile water has not.
Also note that the sterile water says "Rx (Prescription) only" on it. Gotta love bureaucracy.
And this is a testosterone ampule, I haven't heard of much use of vials in hormone medications. They tend to use ampules for the cost benefits.
