The only thing worse than having a bad headache

[shortylickens]

is finding aspirin that expired in 2009. Which means I probably bought it in 2006.


On an unrelated topic: How do you guys cure pain when you dont have any drugs around the house?

 

[Cappuccino]

Did you know expired painkillers does no harm?

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

outside of uncooked meat, dairy, and bread... Expiration dates are just a marketing tool to get you to throw an item away and buy it again for no reason. Also, aspirin sucks, I only use Ibuprofen (Advil) for headaches.

 

[shortylickens]

The Ibuprofen I happened to have on hand did nothing for my headache. I dont know why.
Neither did the expired aspirin.

Maybe I need something stronger. Not sure.

 

[Cappuccino]

The Ibuprofen I happened to have on hand did nothing for my headache. I dont know why.
Neither did the expired aspirin.

Maybe I need something stronger. Not sure.

dissolve the Inbru and drink it. 80% more effective. The drug will rush to your brain faster!

 

[BoomerD]

I live with nasty headaches from a FUBAR'D neck. I start most mornings with 3 aspirin and 4 ibuprofen....then add more if needed a couple of hours later. I'm sure my liver and kidneys are in great shape...

 

[dullard]

outside of uncooked meat, dairy, and bread... Expiration dates are just a marketing tool to get you to throw an item away and buy it again for no reason. Also, aspirin sucks, I only use Ibuprofen (Advil) for headaches.

Um, there is the FDA regulation to consider rather than just "marketing tools".
https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?fr=211.166

According to the FDA, the drug manufacturer must put the expiration date on the drug and perform a reliable, meaningful, and specific stability test when determining the date to put on the drug. The stability test can be at expected extreme conditions (such as a hot, damp room for years). Or the stability test can be accelerated (such as higher temperatures than expected at a typical user's location) as long as the manufacturer is currently conducting an actual stability test and then uses the actual test results when known.

What makes a drug unstable will depend on the type of drug. If liquid, the solvent may evaporate or sterility may be compromised. For all drugs, there may be chemical reactions such as oxidation that degrade the drug. As pills usually don't have sterility or evaporation type issues, a solid pill probably has its expiration date set to where it no longer meets the minimum effective dosage due to slow degredation.

A rule-of-thumb is that it loses ~10% of effectiveness each year if you have nothing else to go by. But the expiration date is actually supported by actual tests, not marketing.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Um, there is the FDA regulation to consider rather than just "marketing tools".
https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?fr=211.166

According to the FDA, the drug manufacturer must put the expiration date on the drug and perform a reliable, meaningful, and specific stability test when determining the date to put on the drug. The stability test can be at expected extreme conditions (such as a hot, damp room for years). Or the stability test can be accelerated (such as higher temperatures than expected at a typical user's location) as long as the manufacturer is currently conducting an actual stability test and then uses the actual test results when known.

What makes a drug unstable will depend on the type of drug. If liquid, the solvent may evaporate or sterility may be compromised. For all drugs, there may be chemical reactions such as oxidation that degrade the drug. As pills usually don't have sterility or evaporation type issues, a solid pill probably has its expiration date set to where it no longer meets the minimum effective dosage due to slow degredation.

A rule-of-thumb is that it loses ~10% of effectiveness each year if you have nothing else to go by. But the expiration date is actually supported by actual tests, not marketing.

The earth is flat. Your argument is invalid.

No but seriously, I don't buy that for one minute. I've had plenty of old pain killers that were just as effective as they were the day they were prescribed.

 

[dullard]

The earth is flat. Your argument is invalid.

No but seriously, I don't buy that for one minute. I've had plenty of old pain killers that were just as effective as they were the day they were prescribed.

Suppose you were prescribed ibuprofen at 3200 mg. Suppose it lost the rule-of-thumb of 10% per year. Then it would have ~1115 mg (3200 mg * 0.9^10) of effective medicine at year 10 and ~389 mg (3200 mg * 0.9^20) at year 20. Compare that to an extra strength ibuprofen pill at 400 mg. That 20 year old prescription pill could possibly be as effective as a new extra strength pill.

Yes, it is possible to have old pain killers that are still somewhat effective. But that doesn't mean that they aren't degrading over time. And proper storage conditions (far from the bathroom that most people store it in) can reduce that degradation. But it still degrades and the FDA requires a date to let the user know approximately when it is becoming less effective.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

What kind of snowflakes have out of date painkillers? When you have chronic pain, it's not an issue.

 

[dullard]

What kind of snowflakes have out of date painkillers?

I'm one of them. I get suckered into buying the 500 count bottle that is 10 cents more than the 50 count. Then I never use more than a few per year and the drugs go past their expiration date. Every ~2 years, I clean house and replace the expired drugs. Those are often in the first-aid kits that I have scattered about and rarely get used (car, hiking pack, kayak pack, etc).

 

[deustroop]

I buy OTC aspirin with codeine, ( once called 222s). They have aspirin, caffeine and 8 mg codeine. Very effective for headaches.
Of course there is this

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada...gation-canadas-invisible-codeine-problem.html

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Between my wife and me, a 500 ct bottle lasts about 2 months max.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Another plug for kratom.

 

[Red Squirrel]

dissolve the Inbru and drink it. 80% more effective. The drug will rush to your brain faster!

I've done this with sudafed. I always feel like a junkie. lol. I never tried injecting it though. I absolutely hate my life when I have a cold, I'll do anything if I think it might help. Colds freaking suck. If they came up with a general vaccination that covered all strains I'd be one of the first to line up for it. I don't care what the odds of autism is.

 

[disappoint]

How do you guys cure pain when you dont have any drugs around the house?

First you should go to a doctor to make sure there isn't something wrong that needs to be addressed. If your doctor checks you out and says you're fine other than the pain and prescribes an analgesic then you can check out these two videos. One is a demonstration and is less than 10 minutes long. The other is a more thorough video over 30 minutes long.

 

[darkswordsman17]

What kind of snowflakes have out of date painkillers? When you have chronic pain, it's not an issue.

What kinda snowflake lives with shitty NSAIDs for chronic pain?

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

What kinda snowflake lives with shitty NSAIDs for chronic pain?

One who wants the least amount of narcotics and still be functional. Did I mention kratom?

 

[lxskllr]

I've always tried to stay away from legal drugs. I just deal with it. Just getting off a couple weeks of acute back pain. It always hurts a little, but sometimes gets bad, and lasts about a week. This time, it wasn't 99.5% debilitating as usual, but getting better took twice as long. Can't win :^/

 

[gorcorps]

What kinda snowflake lives with shitty NSAIDs for chronic pain?

What kind of wuss ass can't go through life without popping pills?

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

I've always tried to stay away from legal drugs. I just deal with it. Just getting off a couple weeks of acute back pain. It always hurts a little, but sometimes gets bad, and lasts about a week. This time, it wasn't 99.5% debilitating as usual, but getting better took twice as long. Can't win :^/

Chronic pain is debilitating. You have to find a balance. Taking nothing prevents you from living your life due to pain. It impacts focus, rest and, imagination. Taking too much negatively impacts your life the same way. I have no problem using drugs legal or, not to find the right balance. When it comes to pain management, doctors are worse than useless. They either don't know what they're doing or, have allowed big pharma and medical practices to dictate how they practice.

 

[disappoint]

Chronic pain is debilitating. You have to find a balance. Taking nothing prevents you from living your life due to pain. It impacts focus, rest and, imagination. Taking too much negatively impacts your life the same way. I have no problem using drugs legal or, not to find the right balance. When it comes to pain management, doctors are worse than useless. They either don't know what they're doing or, have allowed big pharma and medical practices to dictate how they practice.

I'm sure plenty of doctors are well aware of some patients undergoing surgery without anesthesia.

 

[WaTaGuMp]

Back pain is far worse than a headache.

 

[WelshBloke]

Ignore it or OTC co-codamol.

 

[darkswordsman17]

One who wants the least amount of narcotics and still be functional. Did I mention kratom?

Ok, well you seemed to be onboard with pushing popping silly amounts of weakass painkillers that at high levels presents other potential health problems. Kratom or weed are probably the better solutions for chronic pain (assuming you want to keep from risking opiates for obvious reasons). Even then it still isn't addressing the source of the pain but just managing it (which in plenty of instances if all that can be done, as it can be nerve issues or even possibly in the brain and we're quite limited in what we can achieve in actually helping that which doesn't risk causing far more damage). And I'm not sure I support a non-medically advised drug treatment, although due to other factors sometimes that's about all that can be done.

What kind of wuss ass can't go through life without popping pills?

What? Genuinely don't know what point you're trying to make or what you're inferring from my comment.

Chronic pain is debilitating. You have to find a balance. Taking nothing prevents you from living your life due to pain. It impacts focus, rest and, imagination. Taking too much negatively impacts your life the same way. I have no problem using drugs legal or, not to find the right balance. When it comes to pain management, doctors are worse than useless. They either don't know what they're doing or, have allowed big pharma and medical practices to dictate how they practice.

From what I've gathered, the medical profession is actually fairly open about admitting that (that we really don't understand pain well, especially chronic forms). Wait, you're faulting doctors for following official medical practices? I take big issue with that. Not that there aren't problems. I'm not sure that average doctors are to blame for the limits of medicine in this regard though. There's definitely an issue with how it is handled (where doctors were open to prescribing opiates to manage the pain as that was what worked, but then that turned people into junkies; there's often unintended consequences, and technically people suffering from drug addiction do suffer with chronic pain, but the solution isn't always to just push painkillers at them to manage it). Pharma companies definitely deserve some blame, but they were also having to work within framework of moronic anti-drug policies setup by politicians (which by blocking research of other drugs, effectively setup the creation and proliferation of the synthetic opiates, which initially did seem to have the benefits whilst not being nearly as addictive, that have been fueling that crisis). Then there's issue like newer medical procedures and needing to see if that could help (for instance with back pain, where we didn't know how effective various surgeries would be), where we had no data until we actually did them and then find that they can work but there's a lot of risk and so it very well might not be worth it, but when facing someone dealing with chronic debilitating pain they want to try to help them. And then finding out that apparent nerve problems could be triggering chronic pain, but having little ability to really deal with that. And I'm not sure that a lot of people's insurance would cover stuff like shock treatments (which actually can help and in no way are the deranged torture that they somehow got bastardized into in societal belief).