Systems and methodologies are described herein that facilitate efficient handling of packets (e.g., Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) Protocol Data Units (PDUs) or Service Data Units (SDUs)) in a wireless communication system. As described herein, a number of consecutive packets that are discarded due to a discard timer expiration event and/or other causes can be monitored and compared to a number of tolerated consecutive discarded packets. If the number of consecutive discarded packets does not exceed the number of tolerated consecutive packets, conventional processing operations such as header modification and compression, ciphering, or the like can be omitted for respective packets subsequent to a discarded packet, thereby significantly reducing processing overhead. As further described herein, the number of tolerated consecutive discarded packets can be chosen to maintain header compression (e.g., Robust Header Compression (RoHC)) synchronization, ciphering synchronization, and/or other suitable properties.