"expiry dates" on prescription tablets.

Factual Questions
1

I’m currently feeling under the whether (que violins :P) and im un-able at the moment to get hold of any medication such as Ibuprofen (painkiller type tablets), well not any new ones. I found some in my cupboard which have a date on them - 09/2002, are they safe to take? what will happen if i take them?

Thanks.

2

They will be just fine… I have recently read a long article on this, too long to print here in full, and the general thrust of it is that medications such as these have no effective time limit on their efficacy or safety (certainly not a few years over their ‘use by date’ anyway). I will find the article and post a link, if nobody beats me to it…

3

Thanks ever so much for your help!

4

Here is a link to the article… it is the ‘Do Medications Really Expire’ article, about half way down.

http://www.indstate.edu/soe/iseas/Oct03Ca.html#do