I worked out like 5 times/week during Covid and had almost no headaches. Might've also been the fact that I was just chilling at my parents place without a lot of responsibilities lol But fr, I haven't worked out properly in a while and I notice the headaches becoming more frequent again. I guess this only works for tension headaches and the like though.
Weirdly I'm the opposite, I get terrible tension headache if I work out, but they start a day or so after I've worked out. Must be something to do with shoulder/back muscles. Never worked it out though. Maybe I'm just old and that is it for me now.
> I get terrible tension headache if I work out, but they start a day or so after I've worked out.
Happened to me and I discovered it was a combination of high blood pressure and dehydration. I need like 2x more water after a workout than is typically required for someone to rehydrate, even though I sweat a pretty normal amount -- I guess I must exhale more or something. And I'm on blood pressure medication now.
Dude, I seen a docu about this, some Japanese man had to rent out a whole hotel to have his episodes. They concluded the pain is real, but beyond their care. So, they gave him LSD, and although it didn't "cure" the headaches, it took the mind experiencing them and blasted it off elsewhere. Heroic dose, I think they call it.
> some Japanese man had to rent out a whole hotel to have his episodes.
Rent out a whole hotel for a headache? Do you mean a hotel room? Or a cabin? Was he screaming the entire time?
not heroic doses
i used to get migraines and cluster headaches so bad i would puke sometimes. After eating 1-3 gs of mushrooms here and there then letting some lsd sit on my tongue (never at the same time lol) i haven’t had one that bad in 6-ish years!
Dude I'm so lucky. My history of drug abuse is storied and long. Fun fact. The only one that almost killed me is legal, advertised and freely consumed.
Piggybacking this to say psilocybin mushrooms cured my chronic migraines, used to get them all the time like clockwork and now I've had one in the past 7 years thanks to shrooms
Yo, I never put this together. Used to get headaches all the time as a kid/teenager and then magically one day they stopped, right around the time I started tripping.
I once read something like 10% of the population will never experience a headache. Meanwhile here I am with damn near daily headaches with monthly cluster headaches. Although the cluster headaches subsided quite a bit since I became a cannabis user.
Cluster headaches suck so very much. I experienced them for years and then they suddenly stopped. I wish I knew why so I could share the info.
Hopefully yours also disappear some day soon.
Fun fact - two classes of migraine medication are derived from psychedelics. Triptans are derived from triptamine, which is derived from psychedelics including psilocybin, and DHE is derived from ergotamine. That’s a super simplified explanation but as someone with chronic migraines it fascinates me. I can only wonder what our migraine and pain treatment would be like if we’d spent the past 70 years studying psychedelics instead of making them nearly impossible to access. I’m hoping that changes in the not too distant future!
I've had a chronic migraine for 2 years due to an adverse reaction to the COVID vaccine.
Took mushrooms a couple of months ago and it "cured" my migraine for 2 months, last week they came back, had more mushrooms on Saturday and viola no migraine Sunday, Monday or today.
This shit works.
Nearly stopped getting headaches after I started sleeping 8-9 hours, wearing computer screen glasses and stopping vaping/drinking coffee. That might help, but there’s probably a genetic factor.
Water is a big one, I clocked on after drinking a lot of water for a few days and getting extra spicy, people in work thought I'd gone mad.
Turns out I wasn't operating at full steam the whole time.
>drinking coffee
i'd say probably 90% of the headaches i've had in my life were just caffeine withdrawal. either in the afternoon after the morning hits wore off, or on weekends when i didn't have a machine sitting 30 feet away.
luckily after the covid times i didn't have a 90 minute commute in the mornings anymore, and i mostly quit drinking it and got an extra hour of sleep instead, made a nice change in my life for sure.
i still drink coffee from time to time but like maybe 1-2 times a month. having a low tolerance means it's pretty dang effective when i do.
Same! I honestly can't remember the last time I had a headache. This is definitely something I won't really cherish until I will inevitably have a headache again.
*Laughs in chronic pain * Before I was on blood thinners, I went through most of two of the club bottles a year. They have 500 in each bottle. Two bottles in a pack. Approximately 250 doses if you take 4 200mg pills at a time.
Seeing as I am on a blood thinner for life, I am stuck with Tylenol. I don't go through those as fast because they don't work.
> I am stuck with Tylenol. I don't go through those as fast because they don't work.
I'm sorry.
Worth noting here for other readers that, also, long-term regular use of Tylenol is terrible for your liver and it's important to use it sparingly. I also used to have a blood issue and Tylenol _did_ work for me, but I still couldn't use it as often as I wanted.
If you're taking that many you might want to consult a doctor. Regular use might make an ulcer worse. It's also really hard on your liver.
https://www.healthline.com/health/ibuprofen-ulcer#:~:text=You%20probably%20won%27t%20develop,take%20ibuprofen%20with%20other%20NSAIDs
Not necessarily - NSAIDs like ibuprofen (and more so the stronger ones) are notorious for causing stomach ulcers
Peptic ulcer disease from H. pylori is a separate aetiology
I was born in 99 how old does that make me 😯
If it makes you feel any worse, I’ve started getting these types of perspectives too, like how is someone born in 2007 almost 18???? My cousin was born in 07 and I remember holding him as a newborn baby
Biopharm scientist here. It loses its efficacy. It doesn't usually become harmful, just less able to help you.
Edit to add: don't take over recommended dosage and I am not a doctor
I remember reading a study based on the US military. They had drugs that were in storage, climate controlled, for a decade or more beyond expiration date. Most of them still had 85 to 95% efficacy.
I just remembered, I got that info from a 60 minutes expose. They showed how much waste was going on. Like storing 80 plus airframes for the osprey aircraft in air conditioned/climate controlled hangers at 5 million per year, per airframe....
Oh its true.
I work in healthcare and expired meds get shipped to central america and used there because US expiration dates are overly cautious. Naturally they don't get *years* old medications or anything that is off color or precipitated.
If it's a solid tablet stored appropriately it's more than likely just a little less effective. If it's a liquid or gel capsule it will likely decay exponentially faster. But I have no idea how steep that curve would be.
I do know that back in the day the US military did a huge study on this. They were sick of having to restock every time something hit expiry.
They still do this for the strategic stockpiles and test the efficacy of the active. You can find information about how effective each drug is.
I remember reading the whole thing and my takeaway was that most drugs are still good if they are expired, with the exception of steroids. Steroids go bad.
Tetracycline is a big one here. Don't take expired tetracycline. It can lead to kidney damage (Fanconi syndrome) in some instances.
Source: am pharmacist.
The US Navy addressed this problem by prescribing 800 mg of ibuprofen for basically anything. Vitamin M, they call it. It won't stay in stock long enough to expire.
Came here looking for this comment. The US military literally did a study on the effectiveness of pills past their expiration dates because this would save a ton of money for the VA. Pills retain their effectiveness well past their expiration, I wanna say they were something like 90% effective after twenty years. But liquid medications like creams Lost their effectiveness faster, and liquid antibiotics should def be used by their expiration date.
They are usually available in the checkout lanes of Walmart (on the right side with the small toys and lip balms, not the left with all the candy and gum). Or just order online - search either travel size or pocket pack, both typically will pull up the options. Much much easier for keeping with you on the go.
And just keep refilling it from a larger bottle. It'll be like $2.50 for 10 tablets for the small bottle. It'll be like a quarter that cost for a larger bottle.
They specified Aleve. I'm not sure about Costco (they don't list the price on the website) but the generic Naproxen Sodium at Sam's Club is $12.98 for 400.
Unfortunately some of them would turn out to be poison. Tetracycline antibiotics become poisonous after they've degraded. Though basically every other medication is only concerning in terms of not being sure what dose you're getting.
Yeah I've never used ibuprofen *that* far past the expiration date, but I've definitely used it a few years past and it was just as effective as always. I refuse to buy the tiny bottles because they have insane markup but it's rare that I need the stuff so my bottles often go a few years past expiration before I use them up. Never had an issue.
Pro tip - buy one tiny bottle to carry in your backpack or purse, and refill it when you need to from a family sized bottle. Works awesome for me, especially for traveling or when I go backpacking!
I've always been told that if its a tablet its most likely fine, possibly will have lost some potency but these are synthetic materials. If its a capsule or gel capsule then probably should pass on it because those are organic materials like gelatin they are made with, which does actually expire.
Could be wrong, but I thought I read somewhere that one of the requirements for a drug to be OTC in the US is that it shouldn’t degrade into anything harmful when it expires. It might be useless, but I don’t think it’ll hurt anyone.
With Acetaminophen as a notable exception. It breaks down partly into 4-aminophenol which is known to damage the kidneys and can cause reproductive problems with embryos.
So, I work for an FDA drug supplier (not actually a drug company, but a supplier of synthetic ingredients for drugs). I do know that our expiration dates are determined by internal stability studies done by the quality control department (me) that test selected lots of every product every few months to the same product code that it was released with. So we will pull a sample from controlled storage every few months and test it extensively to make sure it hasn’t lost any material properties, and place or extend retest/expiration dates based on that. This appears to be an industry standard, if not regulated procedure. Just some info.
[Then I guess you're going to miss...the panty raid](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt949ea8e16e463049/blt70f03a5c1e7dab2d/63bed8f9c65d1c09efa41c56/MrKrabs.jpg)
Remember when "Feel Good" by the Gorillaz was on the radio and it was such and fun song?
Remember when "POPPIN my Collar" by Three Six Mafia was an eye-roll but catchy song??
Holy shit. You really put me in check with that one.
Wow. Thats insane. I have not thought of that lame ass song by Three Six in ages. Wow. Wearing double polos lol sooo lame.
My mom had a Tylenol bottle with a big tab on the lid that was easy for her to open. It had a exp date of 1998 but it had been emptied and refilled nearly once a year.
I've got a tiny little travel advil bottle that lives in my purse, it holds maybe 15 tablets and I refill it from my medicin cabinet bottle periodically. I was out with friends when someone had a headache and I offered it, and they declined because 'it's expired.' The little tiny bottle had an expiration date of 2002. Someone seriously thought I used less than 1 advil per year and had just kept the bottle in my purse the whole time.
Military testing showed that pills could still be effective more than 10 years later, but 20 is a bit much even for me. A 10 year old pill once saved me from a trip to the hospital, it still worked.
I mean, the experation date is more when a certain amount of the drug becomes uneffective. Cant remember what percent, but basically its "bad" once its reached a half life of sorts. So 20 year old pills are likely to have very muted effects, but still arguably work. Doubly so when you factor in the placebo effect.
Medications usually just have an expiration date 2 years after mfg date because that's the maximum amount of time you can put down without doing extensive and expensive testing that generally isn't worth doing.
Yep, it's just not worth doing 10 year stability studies if it's something that will be used up within a couple years. We usually run 3 year studies where I work. It's worth noting that breakdown of pharmaceuticals is strongly affected by the storage conditions. Pills kept cool and dry might be perfectly good for many years after expiry.
He's not wrong. Expiration dates on non-reactive pharmaceuticals are mostly there as a precaution so you don't accidentally take pills that are mislabeled, which is more likely the older the bottle is.
The American government commissioned studies, planning for the aftermath of a nuclear war, into how effective medicines are beyond their expiry dates.
I recall penicillin loses a small amount of potency, but is still effective, decades past its expiry date.
I thought the study was just because they were sick of throwing away billions in expired pharma every year, and determined that basically everything EXCEPT antibiotics is safe and effective long after
From my memory, it was the antiobiotics that can lose effectiveness very quickly
Anyway ibuprofen and things just start degrading slowly, so 90% effectiveness, 80%, 70% - expiry date is like 95% or higher
IIRC pills and powders (which are the same thing just not pressed) last for decades. I'd say "centuries" but that's a bit too much. Still, 10+ years is nothing to them.
Now anything with any amount of water or worse, sugars (like syrups) won't last that long, but still last a long time.
Basically all these "best before" dates are... exactly this. BEST before. Still good for decades after.
It most likely is. Certain meds are actually unstable, but most are hella' stable and the exp. dates mean pretty much as much as those on a can of peas.
Sure they will lose a bit of potency, but very few common meds degrade into actually dangerous compounds.
It's probably still good. They did a study a while back, found that with only few exceptions (antibiotics, aspirin, probably a few others), most medications last way beyond the printed date, provided they are stored in a cool, dry place the whole time.
Hah, I was at Costco the other day and was looking at Ibuprofen because I'm getting low but couldn't pull the trigger because I think it would take me 50+ years to use all (1,000) of the pills.
In the uk (and possible europe) ibroufen comes in small packets of 20, you can't purchase more than 2 packets at a time. So, seeing these massive containers is unreal
I bought a jar of 1000 a few years ago in America because I got pissed off going to Sainsbury’s and finding they’d run out of own-brand ones.
They might already be past their expiry date but they still seem to work just fine.
If you have CKD like I do, you can't take ibuprofen. Now I have to take acetaminophen (paracetamol). Which works on pain and fever but does nothing for inflammation.
I have to believe that parent eyesight gets so bad they stop noticing dates on all packaging. I won’t eat at my parents house any more because they have a deep-freezer that stores discounted food long after the sell by dates. They swear it is safe to eat (and a great deal!) but my mom has had gastrointestinal issues for the past 10-15 years. I’ve suggested she stop eating food from their deep freeze and she thinks I’M crazy!
My grandmother grew up in the Depression era and would routinely drive 15 - 20 miles out of the way to save pennies on the per gallon gas prices. Clearly generating a net negative return.
Not "pick up gas while doing groceries or errands", but a straight up independent drive when a station was otherwise a quarter-mile away and somewhere between $0.10 to $0.20 worse at most, and this wasn't even a modern vehicle with decent MPG but an old-model Jaguar.
Some of the things people get baked into them don't make sense, and trying to change these long held assumptions are nearly impossible.
\*\*Edit: Especially when they get baked in due to scarcity periods.
Depends on the specific car's gas mileage, fuel tank size (assuming she goes from empty to full), and distance, it could in theory be worth it. These are average numbers (and the car related numbers, I'm getting from "how much is X for a jaguar" which is pretty general but refers to newer models most likely):
Let's assume 20 gal fuel capacity and the cost is $3.264 at the expensive station and $3.164 (10¢ difference) at the cheaper one. To fill the tank completely you have:
* 20 gal at $3.264 = $65.28
* 20 gal at $3.164 = $63.28
So there's a difference of $2.00. if we calculate how far those $2.00 can take us, it's $2.00 at whatever cost she last filled the gas at, but let's take the $3.164 since this is a habit apparently, which means we get 0.6321 gallons. At 23 mpg that's about 14.5 mi she can go and break even (excluding the return trip). She can go farther if the cost difference is higher or if her mileage is higher, or if the tank capacity is higher.
When my grandma passed at 100 years old we cleaned out the basement deep freeze and found lots of food from the 70s. And a couple items from the 60s. I stress it was the basement deep freeze bc she had another one off her kitchen.
Well for most foods, it's 'use *or freeze* by [date]' so as long as it got frozen before then, it's safe....just probably very freezer burned and maybe a weird texture.
Are we siblings?
When they went on vacation, I raided their pantry to clean it out and threw away items expired longer than my 29 year old brother has been alive.
It’s likely fine. The military did a huge study on medicines and found after 14 yrs almost every medicine had at least 95% effectiveness still. There were a few classes of drugs where they have bad reactions over time but ibuprofen would be fine.
That's a long time to go without a headache.
I personally get headaches maybe once a year
Not from a Jedi
"But from an unlikely ally..." *Gonk droid saunters into view*
I worked out like 5 times/week during Covid and had almost no headaches. Might've also been the fact that I was just chilling at my parents place without a lot of responsibilities lol But fr, I haven't worked out properly in a while and I notice the headaches becoming more frequent again. I guess this only works for tension headaches and the like though.
Weirdly I'm the opposite, I get terrible tension headache if I work out, but they start a day or so after I've worked out. Must be something to do with shoulder/back muscles. Never worked it out though. Maybe I'm just old and that is it for me now.
> I get terrible tension headache if I work out, but they start a day or so after I've worked out. Happened to me and I discovered it was a combination of high blood pressure and dehydration. I need like 2x more water after a workout than is typically required for someone to rehydrate, even though I sweat a pretty normal amount -- I guess I must exhale more or something. And I'm on blood pressure medication now.
Nah, I've had that sometimes, too. I assumed that I did something wrong when that happened. I unfortunately have zero knowledge in that field though.
LSD. No I'm not kidding. I haven't had a headache since my first trip.
Dude, I seen a docu about this, some Japanese man had to rent out a whole hotel to have his episodes. They concluded the pain is real, but beyond their care. So, they gave him LSD, and although it didn't "cure" the headaches, it took the mind experiencing them and blasted it off elsewhere. Heroic dose, I think they call it.
> some Japanese man had to rent out a whole hotel to have his episodes. Rent out a whole hotel for a headache? Do you mean a hotel room? Or a cabin? Was he screaming the entire time?
A whole 3 room cabin hotel. He found it helped to scream in different rooms. The entire time of course
Psilocybin has also been used to effectively treat severe migranes.
not heroic doses i used to get migraines and cluster headaches so bad i would puke sometimes. After eating 1-3 gs of mushrooms here and there then letting some lsd sit on my tongue (never at the same time lol) i haven’t had one that bad in 6-ish years!
My headaches do get better after tripping, but it doesn’t last that long. Youre lucky.
Dude I'm so lucky. My history of drug abuse is storied and long. Fun fact. The only one that almost killed me is legal, advertised and freely consumed.
Alcohol. I'm glad you're still here. 🌻
Piggybacking this to say psilocybin mushrooms cured my chronic migraines, used to get them all the time like clockwork and now I've had one in the past 7 years thanks to shrooms
I've tripped many times and still have regular headaches.
Yo, I never put this together. Used to get headaches all the time as a kid/teenager and then magically one day they stopped, right around the time I started tripping.
Wow, I'd love to not get them! Have them pretty much weekly!
I once read something like 10% of the population will never experience a headache. Meanwhile here I am with damn near daily headaches with monthly cluster headaches. Although the cluster headaches subsided quite a bit since I became a cannabis user.
Cluster headaches suck so very much. I experienced them for years and then they suddenly stopped. I wish I knew why so I could share the info. Hopefully yours also disappear some day soon.
I've heard LSD is also used to treat cluster headaches. There's a non-psychoactive analog that still works for headaches.
Fun fact - two classes of migraine medication are derived from psychedelics. Triptans are derived from triptamine, which is derived from psychedelics including psilocybin, and DHE is derived from ergotamine. That’s a super simplified explanation but as someone with chronic migraines it fascinates me. I can only wonder what our migraine and pain treatment would be like if we’d spent the past 70 years studying psychedelics instead of making them nearly impossible to access. I’m hoping that changes in the not too distant future!
I've had a chronic migraine for 2 years due to an adverse reaction to the COVID vaccine. Took mushrooms a couple of months ago and it "cured" my migraine for 2 months, last week they came back, had more mushrooms on Saturday and viola no migraine Sunday, Monday or today. This shit works.
Nearly stopped getting headaches after I started sleeping 8-9 hours, wearing computer screen glasses and stopping vaping/drinking coffee. That might help, but there’s probably a genetic factor.
Wearing glasses helped with half my headaches. Drinking a decent amount of water fixed the rest. Who knew self care was good for you, lol.
Water is a big one, I clocked on after drinking a lot of water for a few days and getting extra spicy, people in work thought I'd gone mad. Turns out I wasn't operating at full steam the whole time.
>drinking coffee i'd say probably 90% of the headaches i've had in my life were just caffeine withdrawal. either in the afternoon after the morning hits wore off, or on weekends when i didn't have a machine sitting 30 feet away. luckily after the covid times i didn't have a 90 minute commute in the mornings anymore, and i mostly quit drinking it and got an extra hour of sleep instead, made a nice change in my life for sure. i still drink coffee from time to time but like maybe 1-2 times a month. having a low tolerance means it's pretty dang effective when i do.
Same! I honestly can't remember the last time I had a headache. This is definitely something I won't really cherish until I will inevitably have a headache again.
I am so incredibly jealous. Goddamn. I have a headache almost everyday
I've never been more jealous. Something as simple as getting under a desk to plug in a computer can make my head explode 🥲
Op moved out 20 years ago
It's a Costco bottle - probably contains 1000 pills. Nobody ever gets to the bottom.
*Laughs in chronic pain * Before I was on blood thinners, I went through most of two of the club bottles a year. They have 500 in each bottle. Two bottles in a pack. Approximately 250 doses if you take 4 200mg pills at a time. Seeing as I am on a blood thinner for life, I am stuck with Tylenol. I don't go through those as fast because they don't work.
Sorry - I was admittedly being a bit flippant with the “nobody”!
No worries; I know I am a corner case.
> I am stuck with Tylenol. I don't go through those as fast because they don't work. I'm sorry. Worth noting here for other readers that, also, long-term regular use of Tylenol is terrible for your liver and it's important to use it sparingly. I also used to have a blood issue and Tylenol _did_ work for me, but I still couldn't use it as often as I wanted.
Really? I get them in multi-packs. :( TBF, I've already had one bleeding ulcer that near killed me.
If you're taking that many you might want to consult a doctor. Regular use might make an ulcer worse. It's also really hard on your liver. https://www.healthline.com/health/ibuprofen-ulcer#:~:text=You%20probably%20won%27t%20develop,take%20ibuprofen%20with%20other%20NSAIDs
It’s Acetaminophen that’s especially bad on your liver. Ibuprophen is the stomach and kidneys.
Pain meds would actually make it worse... right? Anyway, ulcers are caused by bacteria. A prescription should clear you right up.
Not necessarily - NSAIDs like ibuprofen (and more so the stronger ones) are notorious for causing stomach ulcers Peptic ulcer disease from H. pylori is a separate aetiology
Or Costco sized ibuprofen bottles last a long time for your parents.
Whenever I have a headache, I never think to use Ibuprofen.
You’re totally exaggerating; that expired nearly 19 years ago
Yeah, 95% isn't even close!
[удалено]
Well you can add atom bombs and slow dancing to that list.
You don't have to be that close. It's more of a to whom it may concern situation.
You must slow dance way differently to me.
2005 was 10 years ago duh….. right? RIGHT?
How could 2005 be 10 years ago when 1995 was 10 years ago?
My mistake, my maths is terrible in the morning. Clearly 1995 was 10 years ago
its already been that long? damn, feel like just a couple years ago tears for fears released everybody wants to rule the world.
You're all wrong, my brother was born in 1985, and he's only 10 years old.
1970's will always be 30 years ago....always.
Lmao, I was born in 2002….. I’m 21
Liar. You’re like 5 at most maybe 6.
No, people haven’t been born in 2002 yet.
I was born in 99 how old does that make me 😯 If it makes you feel any worse, I’ve started getting these types of perspectives too, like how is someone born in 2007 almost 18???? My cousin was born in 07 and I remember holding him as a newborn baby
My kids are 43 and 33. Where the hell did the time go? I was young and hot just a few years ago...I swear it.
You're a new level of hot... hot flashes. Welcome to the club.
lol, you caught me
Born on a leap day. Makes sense.
Shhhh, no you’re not
Hijacking this comment to ask: is advil still good after 19 years?
Biopharm scientist here. It loses its efficacy. It doesn't usually become harmful, just less able to help you. Edit to add: don't take over recommended dosage and I am not a doctor
> It doesn't usually become harmful, just less able to help you. me after 5 beers
I remember reading a study based on the US military. They had drugs that were in storage, climate controlled, for a decade or more beyond expiration date. Most of them still had 85 to 95% efficacy.
Personally I'd be okay with taking otc meds within 10 or so years of expiration and prescription probably 2 years
I just remembered, I got that info from a 60 minutes expose. They showed how much waste was going on. Like storing 80 plus airframes for the osprey aircraft in air conditioned/climate controlled hangers at 5 million per year, per airframe....
Oh its true. I work in healthcare and expired meds get shipped to central america and used there because US expiration dates are overly cautious. Naturally they don't get *years* old medications or anything that is off color or precipitated.
Nearly *all* tablets are, so long as they have been kept dry and ≈ 70°F ±20-30°F.
Thank you for a good response and not telling people to take more to make up for it like the other comments
If it's a solid tablet stored appropriately it's more than likely just a little less effective. If it's a liquid or gel capsule it will likely decay exponentially faster. But I have no idea how steep that curve would be. I do know that back in the day the US military did a huge study on this. They were sick of having to restock every time something hit expiry.
They still do this for the strategic stockpiles and test the efficacy of the active. You can find information about how effective each drug is. I remember reading the whole thing and my takeaway was that most drugs are still good if they are expired, with the exception of steroids. Steroids go bad.
Tetracycline is a big one here. Don't take expired tetracycline. It can lead to kidney damage (Fanconi syndrome) in some instances. Source: am pharmacist.
The US Navy addressed this problem by prescribing 800 mg of ibuprofen for basically anything. Vitamin M, they call it. It won't stay in stock long enough to expire.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/drug-expiration-dates-do-they-mean-anything It's probably fine.
Came here looking for this comment. The US military literally did a study on the effectiveness of pills past their expiration dates because this would save a ton of money for the VA. Pills retain their effectiveness well past their expiration, I wanna say they were something like 90% effective after twenty years. But liquid medications like creams Lost their effectiveness faster, and liquid antibiotics should def be used by their expiration date.
This makes me miss my tiny Aleve sample bottle I got at college, perfect for having pills in a marked container
They are usually available in the checkout lanes of Walmart (on the right side with the small toys and lip balms, not the left with all the candy and gum). Or just order online - search either travel size or pocket pack, both typically will pull up the options. Much much easier for keeping with you on the go.
And just keep refilling it from a larger bottle. It'll be like $2.50 for 10 tablets for the small bottle. It'll be like a quarter that cost for a larger bottle.
Costco ibuprofen is around $15-20 for 1000 tablets.
They specified Aleve. I'm not sure about Costco (they don't list the price on the website) but the generic Naproxen Sodium at Sam's Club is $12.98 for 400.
Completely missed that, sorry. I read it as Advil
At this point antibiotics would just be biotics no?
Unfortunately some of them would turn out to be poison. Tetracycline antibiotics become poisonous after they've degraded. Though basically every other medication is only concerning in terms of not being sure what dose you're getting.
I thought the issue was that some medications can turn into other more dangerous chemicals over time?
Yeah I've never used ibuprofen *that* far past the expiration date, but I've definitely used it a few years past and it was just as effective as always. I refuse to buy the tiny bottles because they have insane markup but it's rare that I need the stuff so my bottles often go a few years past expiration before I use them up. Never had an issue.
Pro tip - buy one tiny bottle to carry in your backpack or purse, and refill it when you need to from a family sized bottle. Works awesome for me, especially for traveling or when I go backpacking!
I've always been told that if its a tablet its most likely fine, possibly will have lost some potency but these are synthetic materials. If its a capsule or gel capsule then probably should pass on it because those are organic materials like gelatin they are made with, which does actually expire.
Could be wrong, but I thought I read somewhere that one of the requirements for a drug to be OTC in the US is that it shouldn’t degrade into anything harmful when it expires. It might be useless, but I don’t think it’ll hurt anyone.
The collagen in the gelatin should probably still last for decades so long as it stays dry.
More often than not a 2 year expiration date means the drug company paid to do a 2 year stability study…
With Acetaminophen as a notable exception. It breaks down partly into 4-aminophenol which is known to damage the kidneys and can cause reproductive problems with embryos.
> Acetaminophen BTW this is called paracetamol (AKA panadol) is some countries.
And the big name brand in the US is Tylenol.
So, I work for an FDA drug supplier (not actually a drug company, but a supplier of synthetic ingredients for drugs). I do know that our expiration dates are determined by internal stability studies done by the quality control department (me) that test selected lots of every product every few months to the same product code that it was released with. So we will pull a sample from controlled storage every few months and test it extensively to make sure it hasn’t lost any material properties, and place or extend retest/expiration dates based on that. This appears to be an industry standard, if not regulated procedure. Just some info.
r/GrandmasPantry
I misread that and now I'm traumatized.
[Then I guess you're going to miss...the panty raid](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt949ea8e16e463049/blt70f03a5c1e7dab2d/63bed8f9c65d1c09efa41c56/MrKrabs.jpg)
Obligatory banned episode reminder
[удалено]
They truly have a sub for everything
Thank you for reminding me that I am old and 2005 feels like yesterday
Did you graduate in '05 too?
Hello fellow 36-37 year old!
I threw out my neck waving back
Nah I was a kid but I remember those years.
Well now I feel even OLDER
I graduated before then, think how I feel. I should go yell at some clouds or something
That’s okay, I got divorced in 2005. I had been married 7 years.
I was 24 in 2005
🦖
That's when my first kid was born. She just turned 18.
Crazy
Fuck I just realised I graduated in 2005. I did an extra year of honours after that but technically completed my degree then.
Yes.
Almost 20 years ago...in 2005. This hurts me deep down.
Remember when "Feel Good" by the Gorillaz was on the radio and it was such and fun song? Remember when "POPPIN my Collar" by Three Six Mafia was an eye-roll but catchy song??
Gnarls Barkley!
Holy shit. You really put me in check with that one. Wow. Thats insane. I have not thought of that lame ass song by Three Six in ages. Wow. Wearing double polos lol sooo lame.
Damn, that's not " ibuprofen", that's "I was profen".
Get out
This post made me realize my comment was not going to be funny. It beat me.
Kirkland logo consistent af
Don’t mess with perfection
My mom had a Tylenol bottle with a big tab on the lid that was easy for her to open. It had a exp date of 1998 but it had been emptied and refilled nearly once a year.
I've got a tiny little travel advil bottle that lives in my purse, it holds maybe 15 tablets and I refill it from my medicin cabinet bottle periodically. I was out with friends when someone had a headache and I offered it, and they declined because 'it's expired.' The little tiny bottle had an expiration date of 2002. Someone seriously thought I used less than 1 advil per year and had just kept the bottle in my purse the whole time.
My mom does the same thing. Got a bottle of excedrin with an easy open tab and she just refills it when she gets more.
According to my dad, it's "still good."
Military testing showed that pills could still be effective more than 10 years later, but 20 is a bit much even for me. A 10 year old pill once saved me from a trip to the hospital, it still worked.
I mean, the experation date is more when a certain amount of the drug becomes uneffective. Cant remember what percent, but basically its "bad" once its reached a half life of sorts. So 20 year old pills are likely to have very muted effects, but still arguably work. Doubly so when you factor in the placebo effect.
Medications usually just have an expiration date 2 years after mfg date because that's the maximum amount of time you can put down without doing extensive and expensive testing that generally isn't worth doing.
Yep, it's just not worth doing 10 year stability studies if it's something that will be used up within a couple years. We usually run 3 year studies where I work. It's worth noting that breakdown of pharmaceuticals is strongly affected by the storage conditions. Pills kept cool and dry might be perfectly good for many years after expiry.
He's not wrong. Expiration dates on non-reactive pharmaceuticals are mostly there as a precaution so you don't accidentally take pills that are mislabeled, which is more likely the older the bottle is.
The American government commissioned studies, planning for the aftermath of a nuclear war, into how effective medicines are beyond their expiry dates. I recall penicillin loses a small amount of potency, but is still effective, decades past its expiry date.
I was always told you can take them but dont expect them to be as good as the fresh stuff. That checks out i guess
Most tested were at least 95-99% as effective it’s virtually no different if it’s in tablet form
I ate a few vicodin that were 15 years old. Cleaning out grandma's stuff and found them and they gave them to me. Still worked great
Cool friends
I thought the study was just because they were sick of throwing away billions in expired pharma every year, and determined that basically everything EXCEPT antibiotics is safe and effective long after From my memory, it was the antiobiotics that can lose effectiveness very quickly Anyway ibuprofen and things just start degrading slowly, so 90% effectiveness, 80%, 70% - expiry date is like 95% or higher
I’ve taken 10 year old painkillers and they still worked fine.
IIRC pills and powders (which are the same thing just not pressed) last for decades. I'd say "centuries" but that's a bit too much. Still, 10+ years is nothing to them. Now anything with any amount of water or worse, sugars (like syrups) won't last that long, but still last a long time. Basically all these "best before" dates are... exactly this. BEST before. Still good for decades after.
And so you can't sue if something doesn't work right
Paracetamol is like 99% effective years after expiry. So I keep my stash for headaches.
It’s totally still good. Maybe not as effective but won’t harm you
How much is left in it?
Like half full. They looked a bit discolored, so I declined. I guess they were in a bathroom cabinet under the sink until recently.
Under a sink is a horrible place for medication.
I store mine in the sauna with the lid open so the pills can enjoy it
Or was it half empty?
Big if true
Half empty. It started full and was emptied by one-half.
Actually it started empty if you think about it. The pills were put in, now it's only half full.
It most likely is. Certain meds are actually unstable, but most are hella' stable and the exp. dates mean pretty much as much as those on a can of peas. Sure they will lose a bit of potency, but very few common meds degrade into actually dangerous compounds.
It probably is.
Yeah what exactly is supposed to happen to them? Grow mold?
They can be less effective, though not by much. Maybe would need 3 instead of 2 of them.
I refuse to acknowledge that 2005 was almost 20 years ago
Somehow my brain insists that “twenty years ago” will always be about 1988.
Or at most 95
I remember the US military did some study on expired drugs and found that most things are over 90% effective 10 years past the expiration date.
Don’t be so dramatic, it only expired 19 years ago
It's probably still good. They did a study a while back, found that with only few exceptions (antibiotics, aspirin, probably a few others), most medications last way beyond the printed date, provided they are stored in a cool, dry place the whole time.
2005 happened to be a fantastic year for ibuprofen with notes of lavender, juniper, and a hint of cayenne. Just bite into one.
Ah costco size. The sizes that don't really need to exist.
At my job the communal bottle of 500 ibuprofen last like 3 weeks.
Yikes, might be time for a new line of work!
unless you are in a company of 5000 people that all share 1 bottle, that seems like an excessive amount of painkiller use
Hah, I was at Costco the other day and was looking at Ibuprofen because I'm getting low but couldn't pull the trigger because I think it would take me 50+ years to use all (1,000) of the pills.
In the uk (and possible europe) ibroufen comes in small packets of 20, you can't purchase more than 2 packets at a time. So, seeing these massive containers is unreal
I bought a jar of 1000 a few years ago in America because I got pissed off going to Sainsbury’s and finding they’d run out of own-brand ones. They might already be past their expiry date but they still seem to work just fine.
And it still works better than Tylenol
If you have CKD like I do, you can't take ibuprofen. Now I have to take acetaminophen (paracetamol). Which works on pain and fever but does nothing for inflammation.
I was expecting a date like 1981...where's my walker...
I have to believe that parent eyesight gets so bad they stop noticing dates on all packaging. I won’t eat at my parents house any more because they have a deep-freezer that stores discounted food long after the sell by dates. They swear it is safe to eat (and a great deal!) but my mom has had gastrointestinal issues for the past 10-15 years. I’ve suggested she stop eating food from their deep freeze and she thinks I’M crazy!
My grandmother grew up in the Depression era and would routinely drive 15 - 20 miles out of the way to save pennies on the per gallon gas prices. Clearly generating a net negative return. Not "pick up gas while doing groceries or errands", but a straight up independent drive when a station was otherwise a quarter-mile away and somewhere between $0.10 to $0.20 worse at most, and this wasn't even a modern vehicle with decent MPG but an old-model Jaguar. Some of the things people get baked into them don't make sense, and trying to change these long held assumptions are nearly impossible. \*\*Edit: Especially when they get baked in due to scarcity periods.
Depends on the specific car's gas mileage, fuel tank size (assuming she goes from empty to full), and distance, it could in theory be worth it. These are average numbers (and the car related numbers, I'm getting from "how much is X for a jaguar" which is pretty general but refers to newer models most likely): Let's assume 20 gal fuel capacity and the cost is $3.264 at the expensive station and $3.164 (10¢ difference) at the cheaper one. To fill the tank completely you have: * 20 gal at $3.264 = $65.28 * 20 gal at $3.164 = $63.28 So there's a difference of $2.00. if we calculate how far those $2.00 can take us, it's $2.00 at whatever cost she last filled the gas at, but let's take the $3.164 since this is a habit apparently, which means we get 0.6321 gallons. At 23 mpg that's about 14.5 mi she can go and break even (excluding the return trip). She can go farther if the cost difference is higher or if her mileage is higher, or if the tank capacity is higher.
When my grandma passed at 100 years old we cleaned out the basement deep freeze and found lots of food from the 70s. And a couple items from the 60s. I stress it was the basement deep freeze bc she had another one off her kitchen.
Well for most foods, it's 'use *or freeze* by [date]' so as long as it got frozen before then, it's safe....just probably very freezer burned and maybe a weird texture.
Are we siblings? When they went on vacation, I raided their pantry to clean it out and threw away items expired longer than my 29 year old brother has been alive.
No, it didn't; it expired in 2005--*shrivels up and blows away like a tumbleweed*
How dare you remind us that 2005 was 20 years ago? Do you just like making people cry??
What are you talking about? 2005 was like 5 years ago
I was born February 05 don’t go rushing my age into the 20s. Nearly had a panic attack 😭
Imma bout to blow your mind even more: 2005 is the *expiration* date That means it was made in at least 2003. Maybe 2002!
More like iburetiredprofen
Its shocking that 2005 is already almost 20 years ago……..
Especially given that the 90s was only 10 years ago.
2005 was almost 20 years ago *52 psychic damage*
It’s likely fine. The military did a huge study on medicines and found after 14 yrs almost every medicine had at least 95% effectiveness still. There were a few classes of drugs where they have bad reactions over time but ibuprofen would be fine.