# Ibuprofen in a hot car

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ibuprofen-in-a-hot-car/618316>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 9, 2012, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ibuprofen-in-a-hot-car/618316 "2012-04-09T22:54:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![sweeteviljesus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/898d66/32.png) [@sweeteviljesus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweeteviljesus)\
**Post date:** [April 9, 2012, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ibuprofen-in-a-hot-car/618316/1 "2012-04-09T22:54:43Z")

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I bought some ibuprofen a couple of days ago and left it in my car. I would assume it’s still OK, but I thought I’d go ahead and ask.

Thanks,  
Rob

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**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\
**Post date:** [April 10, 2012, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ibuprofen-in-a-hot-car/618316/2 "2012-04-10T01:27:52Z")

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Ibuprofen is rather thermally stable until it’s melting point (somewhere in the 75C range) and tends to break down in a single step, rather than a gradual sloughing off of chemical decomposition products, if I am correctly recalling some lab work I did years ago.

I’m reasonably certain that ibuprofen tablets from pretty much any manufacturer would have successfully completed accelerated stability testing of at least 6 months stored at 40 C/75% RH, so a couple of days in a hot car is probably not a big deal.

I wouldn’t worry about using these tablets (or capsules or whatever they are) while they are still within their expiration date. Feel free to do a search on my username and the word “stability” to know more than you care to know about how I feel about advising people to use drugs past their expiration dates 🙂