I found, through trial and error, that the compound loses it's ooomph with time. I fought with compounding pharmacies back in the early days.. because the suggested shelf life of the 'factory' pills (50mg) is longer. I think (no proof, just gut feeling) that exposure to air, sunlight, etc., of the powder when being compounded to the custom lower dose has a downside in shelf life. I noticed that, getting close to the 3 month mark, pills lost some of their effect. Anyway, apparently others on the compound reported similar issues and pharmacies have lowered the 'shelf' life to 6 months. I personally feel that is still way too high. I only use pills of 90 - 100 days in age. I have heard the places like Skips only compounds in 30 day batches.. so they are .. errring isn't the right phrase.. they are going with a very conservative age process (which I personally think is a very good thing). The problem is.. custom compounding.. the standard equipment used makes pills in 100 pill batches. (or so I've been told by 3 pharmacies). What do they do with the 'leftovers' when doctors typically prescribe in 30 pill increments (usually 90 is the standard). It would simplify things if doctors prescribed 100 pills at a time. Then you would remove the leftovers, and the pills would be fresh enough to still be viable. That is my layman's take on the situation. I doubt if you will find a lot of places like Skips that go the extra step. If you aren't dealing with them, just a typical compounding pharmacy that focuses on profit margins, overhead, etc., then convince your doctor to break with tradition.. practice.. whatever.. and give you a script for 100 days. no leftovers, and you shouldn't run into any issues with pills within that age frame. The problem should go away once someone starts mass producing the pills in 4.5mg (or 1.5mg) factory doses.
Again, I'm not a doctor, nor a pharmacist. Not medically qualified in anyway to offer this opinion. But, it has been my experience over the past 5 1/2 years that pills past 100 days really don't seem to have any effect. Pills within 90 - 100 days seem to be fine. And, pharmacies don't toss their leftovers.. someone ends up getting them, so if your doctor is co-operative, request 100 day prescriptions and break the leftover cycle, OK?