Will Chinese medicine go bad if not kept in the refrigerator?

In fact, Chinese medicine also needs to be kept fresh, especially in the summer when things are easy to spoil. If you do not pay attention to the preservation of Chinese medicine, it will easily allow harmful substances to breed in the medicine, causing it to spoil and change its taste. The storage conditions for Chinese medicine made from each kind of medicinal material are different, but most of the Chinese medicines can be stored in the refrigerator after being boiled. Will Chinese medicine go bad if it is not stored in the refrigerator?

Can decoction of Chinese medicine be kept out of the refrigerator?

1. Different Chinese medicines have different preservation and storage conditions after decoction. Some Chinese medicines need to be stored at room temperature and do not need to be refrigerated. Please consult your doctor for specific circumstances.

2. When a Chinese medicine doctor prescribes Chinese medicine, he usually prescribes a 4-7 day supply, or even longer. Many patients choose to boil all the medicine at once in the hospital or pharmacy, and store the boiled medicine soup in the refrigerator. This is a common method to ensure that medicines do not expire.

How to preserve decoction of Chinese medicine

We need to understand the packaging form of decocted Chinese herbal medicines. Currently, the most common packaging for decocted Chinese herbal medicines is vacuum sealed packaging, and secondly, it can also be placed in containers provided by the patients themselves.

We found that the shelf life of liquid medicine indicated on the sealed vacuum packaging bags of different hospitals and pharmacies is not the same.

There was a study that stored different prescriptions at different temperatures, observed the degree of deterioration of the medicine juice, and recorded items such as odor, turbidity, mold, and acidity. The results showed that the higher the temperature, the faster the medicine deteriorates. In seasons with higher temperatures, when the room temperature is above 25°C, the decoction can generally be stored for no more than 2 days. If refrigerated, it can generally be stored for 7 days without deterioration.

In addition, even under the same conditions, different prescriptions will have different degrees of deterioration. If the content of starch, protein, sugar and other ingredients in the medicine solution is high, it will deteriorate faster.

To ensure the safety of drug use, the optimal storage temperature for sealed vacuum-packed Chinese herbal decoctions is 0~5℃, and the storage time is 7~14 days, but it is best not to exceed 7 days.

On the one hand, after the herbal soup is cooked, it is often kept at room temperature for half a day to a day before being refrigerated at home, which will "accelerate" the decoction to deteriorate;

On the other hand, if the decocted medicinal soup contains animal-based Chinese medicines such as scorpions and centipedes, or Chinese medicines with high sugar content such as cooked rehmannia and astragalus, it will also affect the shelf life. If the medicine bag is found to be bulging or the medicine tastes different, or there are bubbles or other abnormal phenomena, it is spoiled and should not be taken.

If you use a container that you provide yourself to hold Chinese herbal decoction, it is generally not recommended to take it overnight. Even if you place it in the refrigerator, it should not exceed 3 days to avoid the deterioration of the medicine and affect your health.

Common problems and precautions for decocting Chinese medicine

1. Is it safe to fill plastic bags with Chinese medicine?

Many people are now wondering: "If the medicine soup is directly filled at nearly 100℃ and can be stored for 14 days at room temperature, will the plastic components penetrate into the traditional Chinese medicine?" The plastic bags used for decocting traditional Chinese medicine are made of a non-toxic and sterile composite film material, which has the advantages of temperature resistance, pressure resistance and freshness preservation. Therefore, as long as the plastic bags are of qualified quality, the plasticizer content will not exceed the standard.

2. Storage conditions and time

When seeing a Chinese medicine practitioner, usually a 3 to 7 day supply is prescribed at a time. If a patient has a chronic disease, a two-week supply may be prescribed at a time. Many patients choose to boil all the Chinese medicine at once in the hospital or pharmacy, and then store the boiled medicine soup in the refrigerator. To ensure the safety of drug use, the optimal storage temperature for sealed vacuum-packed Chinese herbal decoctions is 0~5℃, and the storage time is 7~14 days, but it is best not to exceed 7 days. The medicine soup is often stored at room temperature for half a day to a day before being refrigerated, which will "accelerate" the deterioration of the soup. If the medicine bag is found to be bulging or the medicine tastes different, or there are bubbles or other abnormal phenomena, it is spoiled and should not be taken.

There are many advantages of machine decoction. The mechanized production has high efficiency, the amount of water added and the decoction time are easy to control, and the decoction can be managed in a standardized, normalized and digital manner. The fire is relatively even, and the Chinese medicine will be soaked in a standardized manner before decocting, so the medicine rarely burns and there is no waste of medicinal materials. For example, if you want to decoct 200 ml of Chinese medicine liquid, you can use a medicine decoction machine. If there is too much water, you can filter it and concentrate it to the specified amount of liquid for consumption.

However, the mechanized process production of decoction machines makes it difficult to achieve personalized decoction. For short-term medication for minor illnesses, such as the common cold, whose condition is relatively mild and takes medicine within a week, there is little difference in the effect whether the medicine is decocted by oneself or by machine. For citizens who do not have time to decoct medicine, do not have the utensils to decoct medicine, do not know how to decoct medicine, or who consider portability, they can choose to decoct medicine on behalf of others.