it's probably one every 12 hours *as needed.* Like they gave me two weeks of vicodin for my wisdom teeth and I don't think I used them more than two days. I don't know what your deal is, but unless you're waking up in agony and you can't sleep for agony, every single day, you'd probably get by with one a day and two for the bad days. With pain killers, "every 12 hours" or "every 4-6 hours" or whatever isn't like antibiotics or birth control where you MUST take it on that schedule -- it's a recommendation and probably the *maximum,* not the baseline.
