Generic vs. Brand Name Drugs

Nurses General Nursing

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yesterday, i had my first reaction to the celexa i take for depression. i've been on this med two years now, and no reactions experienced before now. i just had the rx refilled, and took the first pill yesterday. i noticed the med is a salmon pink color, not white, as it usually is, so my guess is they gave me a generic drug.....or a "placebo". :rolleyes: within one hour of taking the medication, i had the same reaction i get with asa...i'm highly allergic to asa and a bunch of other drugs. i quickly swallowed two benadryl capsules (a total of 50 mg) and in less than 45 minutes, i felt tons better....just drugged too much, so slept til ten this a.m. i called my doc...she called back this morning...told me to take the medication to the pharmacist to have them recheck the dosage and the drug for generic qualities, and call her back so she can enter a new rx for me that would be the brand drug itself, and not a generic one. now...i am waiting for hubby to exit his classroom (he's a medical instructor), so i can get him to come get me since i'm still droggy on benadryl...not to mention i had to take allegra and flonase this a.m. for allergy control. now i'm really wiped out. so...here i sit at the puter with my groggy self typing away to you all about my rx reaction.

my question is: have any of you ever had an allergic reaction to a medication and found out you were given the generic brand instead of the brand name drug itself? how many of you have found in practicing nursing that patients often react negatively to generic drugs vs. the brand name drugs? thanks for your input, gals and guys.

Our insurance requires us to use mailaway for long term meds. One day I got a package from Express Scripts in my mail box. When I opened it there was a 90 day supply of Prilosec with my name on it and a DR. I'd never heard of. Never had a RX for Prilosec. Called Express Scripts--you wouldn't believe how long it took to get a refund after I sent the med back. They made out like it was no big deal and just send it back. Couldn't explain how it happened, but no big deal! I told them I was a nurse and it would sure be a big deal if I gave a patient the wrong med!!!

Funny thing was that 2 months later I took my Dad to a new specialist. While sitting in the office I noticed that one of his partner's was the DR. named on the Prolisec RX. I told the receptionist what had happened and sure enough, they had a pt. with the same name as mine! So Express Scripts definiately screwed up that one. If I'd been a demented old lady, I just would have thought the DR. wanted me to take one of these purple pills each day!! Health care is SCAREY all around! Question all RX!!!!!:eek:

Renee, you don't by chance have any of those pills from your LAST bottle hanging around anywhere that you could identify from that website, just to make sure those were Celexa, do you?? I mean, just per chance???? All the websites I've looked at appear to me to say there's no generic form of Celexa out yet. (but I could be wrong).. If you go to walgreens.com you can see the actual photo of the tabs, the 40mg tab is white, the 20mg tab is the salmon, were you perhaps being given the 40mg tab all this time? (also look up celebrex, make sure that's not what you were given...lol)

I recently changed pharmacies, and 2 of my meds changed appearances on me, as they used different manufacturers. Really freaked me out, so I know where you're coming from! You get used to "the little blue pill, the big white pill, and the oblong salmon pill" syndrome like our patients come in with! And then this parmacy messed it up! LOL. Yes, I had to verify my meds were all correct, and they were...but still, each time I opened my meds, confused the daylights out of me..grrrrrr....

Good luck, hope you're feeling better!

Jenni

In regard to synthyroid, I too am hypothyroid. There is a difference between one brand or the other, but this is an exception. I think infact the different formulations of this drug are slightly different, as opposed to just being made by a different company.

Off topic: A really good book for those coping with thyroid deficiancy is : Thyroid Power: 10 steps to total health. By R. L. Shames MD and K. H. Shames RN. HarperResource.

Renee, as they say with allergic reactions, these can happen at any time, even with a substance that you previously have tollerated. Maybe they've recently changed the way they process the drug?

Specializes in Community Health Nurse.

thanks everyone for all the wonderful advice. there is a lot of truth in every post here that i had verified by my doctor and the pharmacist yesterday. the pharmacist assured me that i indeed did receive "the right drug...the right dose...for the right patient...as the doctor prescribed". he told me that there isn't a generic celexa....as yet since the drug is still relatively new on the market. the thing that bothers me.....still......is the brown tinted container that held a massive number of pills the pharmacist showed me as being celexa...and the same batch that my rx was filled from. i saw the inside of that container, and i wonder if they clean those periodically, or really know for sure that no other med...looking like the salmon-pink celexa pills are "accidentally" thrown in the mix of those pills. :eek: i thought about this all night long, and my gut feeling tells me to call the pharmacist there, and inquire as to how those containers are kept clean and safe from other pills getting mixed in them because it sure didn't look safe and clean to me. :o so...that's my next mission to undertake. it worries me that "other patients" may be harmed if i don't pursue this issue....even though i am okay now.

jen911....when i think back over the past two years since i've been taking celexa, i am certain that i was given white pills and not salmon-pink ones at one time or two...but...the bottle always said 20mg. it was during those times that i thought i was being given a "placebo" as the study on celexa states they do this periodically as a measure to check the effectiveness of the new anti-depressants on the market...as well as other drugs. so.......guess i have been a guinea pig for this new drug without my knowledge of knowing i have been...except...being the astute nurse that i am...i already suspected that i was being given placebo pills from time to time, and this i will bring up with my doctor when i see her next month. :idea: also, i did not have any pills left from an old bottle to compare them to. i usually check the pills when i pick them up, and if they look like my pills, and have the proper letters and mgs on them, i feel okay about having received the right medication, but rest assured...i will be checking them against an old bottle of pills before i take the last pill from the previous bottle from now on.

i need to know what happened to me a few days ago, and somehow i doubt if the grape juice story is all that kosher...maybe not...my doc is known for her sincerety...but i am in no way finished getting to the bottom of all this. :D

suzyk.......my allergies are numerous...but i'll share one of them with you all......asa ------ aspirin ----- big time...........and it was those same allergic symptoms that i get with asa that i had on monday eve after taking the first dose of celexa from the new bottle: dyspnea, itching of the throat, watery eyes, larnyx tightening up, and wheezing. i believe those symptoms would be called going into "anaphylactic shock". the quick response of taking the 50 mg. of benadryl, curtailed those symptoms in a short amount of time, so thank god i had some on hand.

Specializes in Community Health Nurse.

Well Allnurses siblings.........I made it through another evening without a reaction from taking my Celexa. Looks like the doc might have been right....something I ate or drank when I took the pill.......the grape juice...the seasoning on the burger I ate...:confused: Anyhoo.......I'm alright now! Thanks for all your help and great advice! Nighty night! :kiss

Specializes in cardiac ICU.

If you give a placebo to check the effectiveness of anti-depressant medication, and the patient commits suicide, does that mean that the anti-depressant had been working? :eek:

Specializes in Community Health Nurse.
Originally posted by KarafromPhilly

If you give a placebo to check the effectiveness of anti-depressant medication, and the patient commits suicide, does that mean that the anti-depressant had been working? :eek:

Good question, KarafromPhilly! I highly doubt it the way those meds are monitored on a very regular basis. It takes a few weeks for most anti-depressants to take effect in one's system, so I would imagine the reverse is true of the placebo. Perhaps a psych NP on the BB can better answer this question for you than I could. I am on a medication that required placebo pills in the initial taking of the drug (Celexa), but that is only when a medication like that is fairly new on the market. I'll look into this further from my doctor and searching the web as I would also like to know how studies like this are done. :)

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