FREE Ibuprofen From Target

Quote from Kaptain Kuponn : no doubt. only if I was already on my way to Target. interesting note: I got whiplash pinched nerve situation so i pulled out my 5 year old bottle of advil - generic from Kroger. seems just as potent as the new stuff. I was at costco and saw a bottle of 750 for $6.35 (ish) so I thought I'd buy it because I should have fresher ibuprofen if I'm going to be taking it as much as I am. I took advil mebbe 5 times a year previously. Anyway, like I said, it turns out the old stuff is just as potent as the new stuff. Really shocked as lots of prescription drugs lose potency fairly quickly so I was amazed that this hadnt. Its 2.5 years past the expiration date. Am I surprised that a product's expiration date is more conservative than it needs to be? of course not, I trust your average company to be honest as much as I trust the banking industry. Still, amazed at ibuprofen's shelf life. Hell, mebbe it never loses potency. Just a head's up for anyone who's ever wondered about shelf life

Just to engage in the off-topic discussion, there are good and bad reasons to have expiration dates that most drugs have. The bad reasons, of course, are because expiration dates don't represent value in the same way that food dates do, for example. We can typically conclude that food will expire on or somewhat shortly after a printed expiration date and it will be no use afterwards. They are also significantly shorter time frames than pharmaceutical expiration. The good reasons are generally practical as well as geared towards safety. The date is a highly controlled value, in which the manufacturer has proven to the FDA that the drug meets safety and efficiency standards. The testing required to prove this is not insignificant, and longer expiration dates extend the time delay between initial manufacturing and bringing a drug to market. This is particularly an issue for new drugs. In additional, best practices as well as regulations require manufacturers to hold on-hand samples of all drug lots that are (generally) un-expired, but the hold time can vary some. Longer expiration dates require larger warehousing for product samples and this can be prohibitive.

Long story short, most expiration dates represent the point at which only a minimal (but not insignificant) portion of the drug "efficiency" has decayed. It is not completely a plot to keep you wasting money, but steady revenue does play a role in the decision of how to market the expiration date.