I'm the heritec (sp) here...I keep mine. Granted neither DH nor I are 'pill poppers' but you just never know when you need an antibiotic or pain pill for a couple of days. It takes a long time for the efficacy of the drug to actually degrade. You might need an extra pill or 2 to get the desired results but it beats spending time/$$ (at least for me) in the Dr. office. We have drugs that are several years old just for that purpose. Recently I squished my foot. Old script was about useless. Got new one from Doc. Ended up not taking it but you just never know...