Generic vs. Name

[HYHYBT]

I did just *have* to buy the generic/store brand Dr Pepper once, solely for the name: that store called it "Dr Bob." Like Rowlf in Veterinarian's Hospital. It wasn't bad, but by the time I was through the pack I was ready for the "real" stuff again.

[BlaqueKatt]

I always thought the suds were the main part of the soap. good, thick oily suds. Get a big wad of it on the sponge before I go scrubbing away at the next dish.

heck I actually don't even use dish soap to wash my dishes(except for greasey pans), I use one of these and plain water-gets them just as clean.

[AdminAssistant]

I tried SLS-free shampoo and didn't like it because my hair didn't feel clean. To each their own.

I have a bit of brand-name bias, but I am buying more store brands these days. Things like ibuprofen, most canned/frozen foods, and such. Unless it's something in particular, like the Green Giant broccoli/rice/cheese steam in a bag thing, which isn't available in generic. (SO good, btw.) And I find that there's rarely a significant price difference between some things. I do buy better quality toilet paper, because that actually saves money (and our hineys!)

[Greenday]

Actually, not so with most drugs. There are fillers, colorants, and coatings and other ingredients that don't get listed on the labels for drugs that can have different effects on people. In some cases, the generic will cause problems that the brand doesn't, and sometimes it's the other way around. I don't have problems with colorants or other fillers, so as long as the active ingredients are identical, I always go with the generic.

So basically because they look different, they are different? I don't buy that. One is just made to look pretty and is advertised the hell out of it. The other is just a plain pill with the exact same active ingredients. So when I go to get a pain med and I have to choose between Tylenol and Acetominophin, I'm taking the latter because in the end, same chemical doing the same thing except Tylenol is priced higher.

[linguist]

So basically because they look different, they are different? I don't buy that. One is just made to look pretty and is advertised the hell out of it. The other is just a plain pill with the exact same active ingredients.

that's true for the active ingredient, but often it's the difference in inactive ingredients that causes problems. for example, my mom had a pretty serious allergic reaction a few years ago after taking a store-brand acetominophen. it turns out she was allergic to one of the colorings they used. she does not have this problem with tylenol, however, so she always buys tylenol just to be certain that she won't have the same reaction again.

[Greenday]

Okay but barring random allergies, it's the exact same thing for most people.

[Rapscallion]

I tried SLS-free shampoo and didn't like it because my hair didn't feel clean. To each their own.

SLS is a very effective cleaning agent - it's very good at stripping away excess oils on the skin and in the hair. It's probably fairly useful on dishes as well, to help get rid of grease there, but I've not done any research into this.

Rapscallion

[muses_nightmare]

I stick to a few brand names my conditioner (I don't generally use shampoo) is tresemme, and I always buy the extra strength advil gel caps for my migraines.

I'm not generally picky otherwise though. I can't drink colas or well, anything with caffeine so those are a non issue (though my bf really only likes Coke). We will buy store brand pop in other flavours, safeway brand grapefruit pop is pretty awesome, their rootbeer is good too (I used to really like Barqs, but well, caffeine).

Body washes and such I'll try anything so long as it smells good, I don't generally have reactions to that type of stuff though. I do really like the softsoap Grapefruit scented body wash, it smells amazing.

I also found that the wal-mart brand of bath and body products that mimic The Body Shop are actually pretty decent, and they have one that smells exactly like the satsuma lotion I loved from The Body Shop for a heck of a lot cheaper.

[Ginger Tea]

Knock off Dr Pepper's might not be rife over here then, mind you since moving I've found my outlets limited to the main three supermarkets and they normally do brand name and store brand little to no inbetween and store brand seems to be limited to cola lemonade and one or both of orange and cherryade, depending on store.
I recall Lidl and Aldi (iir we have one of those if I don't mind almost going off the map to get to it) used to have alot of generic/forign versions of drinks, sometimes the german biscuits were better, well those 'traditional' german ones we used to glue to thin card houses at christmas when we lived there for a bit were a must buy and tasted 10 times better once you let the air get to them, ginger biccies are ace a few days after you open them, nice and soft and not as spicy, although I normally dunk mine in coffee so I don't have to worry bout the hardness of them.

[Lace Neil Singer]

I buy a couple of things from the local supermarket's economy brand; they're exactly the same, tastewise, as the generic save that they're packaged in cheapo packaging. For example the cheddar. I'm not paying out a couple of quid for fancy packaging, cuz that's not the part I'm eating. XD

[Boozy]

...and I always buy the extra strength advil gel caps for my migraines.

I love those. They are one of the few over-the-counter meds I will buy name-brand.

For the longest time, I couldn't find no-name 400mg ibuprofen gel caps. When I finally did, they worked just as well - except the gels caps were huge and very difficult to swallow. So it's back to Advil for me.

[Ginger Tea]

For the longest time, I couldn't find no-name 400mg ibuprofen gel caps. When I finally did, they worked just as well - except the gels caps were huge and very difficult to swallow.

You sure they were meant to be taken oraly?

[DrFaroohk]

My mom always told me that with medicine, it's not the just the brand of acetamenophine you're taking but also the "carriers" in it. Tylenol has better "carriers" so it will work better than the generic CVS brand or whatever. She also said that's how different ones work for different parts of the body. The headache one has special carriers that make it focus on your head, the back pain ones focus on your back. I dunno how true that is. My mom is smart but also...well. you know.

[BlaqueKatt]

She also said that's how different ones work for different parts of the body. The headache one has special carriers that make it focus on your head, the back pain ones focus on your back. I dunno how true that is. My mom is smart but also...well. you know.

um wow that's an "interesting" take on how pain meds work, and not at all accurate.

NSAIDs-NSAIDs contain ingredients that block the enzymes responsible for making prostaglandins, which are chemicals that cause damaged tissues to swell. When tissues swell, nerve impulses to the brain become more frequent. Your ibuprofen pill disrupts this process by limiting the number of pain signals that reach the brain, giving you relief

Narcotics-When narcotics, also called opioids, dissolve in the bloodstream, they attach to the proteins that take pain signals to the brain. This disrupts the pain cycle. Narcotics also enter the brain, and change the way pain is felt. In other words, they do not take pain away, they simply allow the brain to interpret pain differently.

Read more: How Does Pain Medication Work?

[Shalom]

Regarding brands vs. generics: As others said, pharmaceuticals are different from other products. There's no FDA requiring equivalency studies to be done on toilet paper, to name one example, such that the manufacturers of the generics have to prove that they wipe your butt as efficiently as the brands.

There's also a tremendous amount of marketing aimed at convincing the consumers to buy the brand, or even to buy one brand over another, but they do have to be very careful what they say. They aren't allowed to come straight out and say, Advil works better than Motrin, or Tylenol works better than generic APAP, because there isn't any proof of that and they would be "misbranding" it, as the law calls it. So they just say things like "Tylenol contains the active ingredient doctors recommend most." or "FACT 1: The medicine in Advil® is the #1 doctor recommendation for joint pain.*" It implies that it specifically means Advil, but if you read it carefully, nowhere does it say that the medicine in Motrin® isn't any better. Also note that * there: it points to a footnote that says *Among OTC pain relievers. Use as directed. Yes, among OTC pain relievers, ibuprofen (which is of course the medicine in Advil, as well as Motrin, Nuprin, and a raft of generics) is the most recommended; among prescription pain relievers, though, which may represent a much larger share of the market, maybe it's not the most recommended. I know I personally dispense more naproxen than ibuprofen for arthritis, although this varies by store and by doctor; ibuprofen tends to be used for short-term things like dental pain. People don't like to be on things long-term that have to be taken four times daily.

For kicks sometime, read the claims in the commercials with a more cynical eye, and see if you can find where they weaseled on these claims. Try to see where they're implying more than they can legally claim if they say it outright, and how they're trying to force the audience to misinterpret what they say to their benefit. I find this a fun game for a rainy afternoon.

(I remember a MAD magazine article from around 1962 where they went into this in detail. EG: sale on lightbulbs, with a footnote reading "Any left in stock". When yoiu get there, you find that this means any bulbs with left-handed thread in stock. If you find any, and you have left-handed light sockets, you're golden, otherwise you've got to pay full price. Those guys were ahead of their time, I tell you.)

So, a funny thing happened recently. One of the biggest factories that makes OTC liquid medications got shut down by the FDA for some deficiencies in the manufacturing process. This meant that brand name Motrin suspension, brand name Tylenol syrup, and other drugs made by that same factory were recalled and have been unavailable for about two years now. I've had plenty of patients who insisted on getting the brand name medications, even when they could have gotten Medicaid to pay for the generic. (Of course then they want Medicaid to pay for the brand, which they can whistle for, because Medicaid's not stupid. Sometimes they want me to bill the generic and give them the brand, and they'd pay me the difference in price. This is illegal, and I won't do it, but that's a fratch for another thread.) So now, the brand names are unavailable, and only generics can be had. The mothers are learning, slowly, that the generic ibuprofen works every bit as well (or as poorly) as the brand. I find this hilarious, because what it amounts to is that the drug company has shot itself in the coprorate foot with this prolonged recall and shutdown. Their whole market share was based on the (mis-)perception that their product was somehow better than the competition; once the customer base learned that it's the same stuff, even if the company does get their factory re-opened, nobody's going to want to pay their premium anymore.

I should point out that in some cases, brands and generics shouldn't be interchanged willy-nilly. These are generally drugs with narrow therapeutic indexes. Thyroid medications come to mind; also warfarin, phenytoin, and a few others. I've also heard anecdotal evidence that one particular generic of Wellbutrin-XL, although allegedly bio-equivalent, isn't in fact, and peaks earlier and runs out earlier than the brand, causing therapeutic failure. For the most part, though, there's no real difference.

My mom always told me that with medicine, it's not the just the brand of acetamenophine you're taking but also the "carriers" in it. Tylenol has better "carriers" so it will work better than the generic CVS brand or whatever. She also said that's how different ones work for different parts of the body. The headache one has special carriers that make it focus on your head, the back pain ones focus on your back. I dunno how true that is. My mom is smart but also...well. you know.

I don't think so. Down that road lies homeopathy, whose promoters claim that the base "remembers" what used to be in it before you diluted it out so far that there isn't a single molecule of active ingredient left.

The headache acetaminophen is exactly identical to the back pain acetaminophen. The regular Excedrin is exactly identical to the migraine Excedrin. The athlete's-foot Lamisil is exactly identical to the jock-rash Lamisil. The Claritin allergy syrup is exactly identical to the Claritin hives syrup (except that the latter costs $2 more). Benadryl allergy tablets are exactly identical to Unisom sleep-tabs. I could probably go on... the basic idea is that they're trying to get more shelf space allotted. If the same product shows up in more than one place, they'll sell more of it.

The only acetaminophen that's different from the rest of them is Tylenol Arthritis, which is an extended release formulation. All it means is that you take them every 8 hours rather than every 4 hours. It doesn't mean, though, that there are special fillers in there that direct it straight to your knees.

(Of course there are always those who don't read labels, figure more milligrams = better medicine, and take them like the regular ones. Then wind up with liver damage. Remember, kids, maximum safe dosage in someone without previous liver damage is 4000mg per 24 hours, and they're making noises about reducing that.)

For the longest time, I couldn't find no-name 400mg ibuprofen gel caps. When I finally did, they worked just as well - except the gels caps were huge and very difficult to swallow. So it's back to Advil for me.

Not sure where you're posting from, but in the USA, by law any ibuprofen over 200mg per dosage unit requires a prescription, and I don't think the prescription ones are available in anything but tablets.