Medicine Strip (Dawai Ka Patta): Generic Name, Strength, Expiry

Turn the strip over. The big brand name on the front is marketing; the small print underneath, the generic name and its strength, tells you what the medicine really is, and the EXP date means the last day of that month. Once you can read those three lines, you can catch the most common home mistake with a medicine strip: taking the same drug twice under two different names.

What is written on a medicine strip, line by line

A strip (the foil-and-plastic card people call a patta) carries more information than most of us ever read. Here’s the usual order, though the layout changes between companies.

1. Brand name: the largest word. It belongs to one company.
2. Generic name: the medicine itself, often in smaller type, sometimes in brackets. This is the line that matters most.
3. Strength: a number with a unit such as mg, mcg or IU, printed right after the generic name. It tells you how much medicine sits in each unit.
4. Batch or Lot number: a code that lets the maker trace one production run.
5. MFG date: when that batch was made.
6. EXP date: the date after which the maker no longer promises full strength and safety.
7. Storage line: for example “Store below 30°C, protect from light and moisture”.
8. Rx or schedule mark: a sign that the medicine should be sold on a prescription.

Cut strips lose lines. That’s the first reason to keep the carton.

Generic name vs brand name: why two boxes can be the same medicine

Think of the generic name as the person and the brand as the outfit. Paracetamol is paracetamol whether the box is blue, red or covered in cartoons. Dozens of companies sell the same generic under their own brand names, and a chemist may hand over a different brand from the one the doctor wrote.

Normal. Usually fine. It’s also exactly how the double-dose trap happens.

The double-dose trap

A cold-and-flu sachet or combination tablet often contains paracetamol along with other ingredients, and if someone takes that and then a plain paracetamol for the headache, they have taken the same drug from two packets without knowing. Too much paracetamol can seriously harm the liver, and the damage can be silent at first.

The same thing happens with long-term medicines. An elderly parent sees two doctors. One writes a BP medicine by brand A, the other writes brand B, and both are the same generic. Or two painkillers from two clinics share an ingredient, which also raises the risk of stomach trouble covered in painkiller-induced gastritis.

The fix is boring. It works. Compare generic names, not brand names, every time a new medicine comes into the house. If two share a generic, stop and ask the pharmacist or doctor before anyone takes both. Don’t drop either one on your own.

The strength number: why a small difference matters

Strips from the same brand often come in more than one strength. A BP medicine might come as a 5 and a 10; a painkiller as a 500 and a 650. Same colour. Same logo. Only the number changes.

So when a refill arrives, check that the number matches the old strip and the prescription, and if it doesn’t, ask why before the first one is taken, because a changed number is either a deliberate decision by the doctor or a mistake at the counter, and from the strip alone you cannot tell which. Sometimes the doctor changed it on purpose. Sometimes the shop simply had the other one. Only the doctor or pharmacist can say which, and you shouldn’t swap, split or double up to “make it equal”. This article gives no doses, and nobody should work one out from a strip.

Two more clues matter. “SR”, “XR”, “CR” or “ER” after the name means slow or extended release: the tablet is built to release the medicine over many hours, and crushing or breaking it can release it all at once. “EC” means enteric coated, a shell meant to survive the stomach. Ask before you break or crush any tablet that carries these letters.

How to check the expiry date of a medicine

Look for EXP, Exp. Date or “Use before”, which on most packs sold in Pakistan and India is printed as a month and a year only, without a day, and that small gap is where most of the confusion about expiry dates begins.

• Month and year only (EXP 03/2027): good up to and including the last day of March 2027.
• Full date (EXP 15/03/2027): good up to that day.
• MFG vs EXP: people mix them up. MFG is the birthday, EXP is the end. If only one date is visible on a cut strip, don’t guess which it is.
• Once opened: some products get a shorter life after opening, whatever the printed date. Eye drops, mixed antibiotic syrups and creams are the usual examples, and the box or leaflet says how long.

The printed date also assumes the storage line was followed. A strip kept on a hot window sill all summer, or in a handbag that travels in a sweltering rickshaw every day, may be weaker well before its date even though the printed numbers still look perfectly fine. The storage line is short, so it’s worth reading it as an instruction about where in the house the box lives: a cool inner cupboard, never above the stove or in a steamy bathroom. For heat and load shedding, the heatwave cooling guide gives a feel for how hot a closed Pakistani room can get.

Why you should keep the carton

A strip is often cut to sell a few tablets, and the scissors can remove the expiry date, the batch number or the generic name. The carton keeps them all, plus the leaflet, which lists what’s inside, the storage conditions and the side effects to watch for.

One habit fixes it. Keep each strip in its own box, and when the box is empty, throw the box away with the last strip. A shoebox of loose strips with no names is how mix-ups start.

How many tablets are in one strip, and counting before a trip

Strips commonly hold ten, but fourteen, fifteen and six are also sold, and the carton says how many strips it holds. Before a trip, whether it’s a wedding week in another city, a long visit to relatives abroad or travel over Ramadan and Eid when pharmacies keep odd hours, count what’s left in every strip rather than trusting memory, because running out on the road is how doses get skipped.

1. Lay out every strip for each long-term medicine.
2. Count the units left and the days you’ll be away, then add a few spare days in case of delay.
3. If you’re short, refill before you go, with the same generic and the same strength.
4. Carry medicines in hand luggage, in their cartons, with the written list below.

Keep a written medicine list by generic name

This is the single most useful thing a family can do with the information on a strip: one page, updated whenever anything changes, carried to every doctor visit and every emergency.

Add herbal products and supplements too; our page on telling your doctor about herbal medicines shows why they belong on the same sheet. For how to read a herbal box itself, see how to read a herbal product label. More household guides sit in Desi Remedies.

Did you know?

• The Rx sign comes from the Latin for “take”, written as a shorthand on prescriptions for centuries.
• A generic medicine sold as a brand has to contain the same active ingredient; the fillers, colour and shape can differ, which is why the “new” tablet may look nothing like the old one.

Common questions about reading a medicine strip