Different manufacturer ... drug doesn’t work now.

[thecon]

Has anyone experienced a change of manufacturers when it comes to their medication? I just went back on lamotrigine but now with a different manufacturer… I don’t have any of the same side effects that I had when I started it years ago I’m also noticing pretty much no improvement in my mood or attitude and have gone from 25mg to 50, 75, and now at 100.
This company is Unichem Pharmaceuticals through honeybee health and I used to have torrent through Kaiser

 

[natalie]

Sounds like to me it has gone to generic. You could possibly try to see a doctor, and seek for them to rewrite the prescription in a different form, and you then might be able to have the original branded version.


This is what I had to with mine, mine gave me terrible side affects, so as they were the same costs, they were able to swap me back to the original brand.

You can only ask, the doctor, and something is always better than not hing. so try to hang on, in the meantime take the doses, and book the appointment.

I do wish you well with this.

 

[calypso]

There is no difference between branded and generic. I think it is probably a coincidence that you are noticing changes.

 

[Zoe1]

I have had this problem actually
and the chemist agreed not to give me a particular brand

 

[Worriedyin]

There's up to 10% tolerated difference between original and generic medications, so you're likely not imagining it. Natalie is right, ask your prescribing doctor to specify the branded version which works for you.

 

[Mal84]

You aren’t imagining it but also at the same time it’s not helping that (I guess) it’s on your mind constantly.

While I’m not bipolar (BPD Ftw, not) I take a mood stabiliser but can only have a certain brand as prescribed and that’s been from the very first moment it was prescribed.

 

[goodgollymiss]

I had brand name olanzapine and had no weight gain. When I went on generic olanzapine, I gained 50 pounds. I cant afford brand name olanzapine

 

[thecon]

Unfortunately the doctor is an online doctor and not a psychiatrist. To be honest I don’t even know how it’s legal.

 

[CrazyAndy]

There is no difference between branded and generic. I think it is probably a coincidence that you are noticing changes.

Exactly. In countries like USA, AUS, UK all medications are tightly regulated and the generics must contain the same chemical as the original. There must be something else explaining the difference, such as a change in diet or a condition affecting the absorption of the medication.

 

[Worriedyin]

There's up to 10% tolerated difference between original and generic medications, so you're likely not imagining it. Natalie is right, ask your prescribing doctor to specify the branded version which works for you.

Correction, it's actually more like 20% tolerance in the EU, Wikipedia says pretty much the same for US. I was going from memory. I'm having some problems with getting the results I want from Google so took me a little while to find what I was after.

Article on UK generics:
'European regulations state that generic products must be shown to have bioavailability within the range of 80–125% of the reference product. Tighter limits can be set when safety is an issue. Generic products must meet this standard to be considered ‘essentially similar’ to the originator brand [14].'

Generic and therapeutic substitutions in the UK: are they a good thing?

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Worth pointing out that if you can't afford the previous brand, there might be another manufacturer of the generic which suits you better. I preferred going to a small chain pharmacist over a nationwide chain as I preferred their risperidone when I was taking it.

 

[CrazyAndy]

Generics - equal or not?

www.nps.org.au

It is sometimes claimed that the 80 to 125% limit means there can be a 45% variation between the new product and the reference product, but this is not really the case. The average ratio (point estimate) is usually reasonably close to 100% and this is the value of maximum likelihood for the comparison. If the average ratio is close to the 80 or 125% regulatory limits then the data would have to be very tight indeed to prevent the 90% confidence intervals falling outside the regulatory boundaries.