2172 Hydrocodone Acetaminophen-actavis/walgreens Complaint (Page 2) (Top voted first)

I too had my RX medication refilled (again) at Walgreens, but this time (When I did not take my RX Tylenol with it, like I always do) I noticed, that I have been given a different Brand of medication (A Generic Brand/MFG by-ACTAVIS). My "Norco-Hydrocodone/Acetaminophen 5-325/TB" did not work as prescribed or even when I took 3 pills at one time (because 1 nor 2 pills didn't work/relieve my pain). I believe I have been given FAKE NORCO/Hydrocodone pills (white/#2172 on them) from Walgreens Pharmacy. Today I contacted the DEA & FDA via email and requested that they investigate my complaint as soon as possible.

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Same here my Norco were phony I. Was on Norco 10 went into withdrawals all the hype on the media guess Walgreens afraid getting sued I don't know I'm off Norco now take etod olac for arthritis it helps about 2 hours only take 2 a day cause health issues ulcers I wish I could take something else for pain not Norco to addictive guess all narcotics are I've heard percosets aren't to bad oh yeah take cdb oil 100 mil can't afford the 500mil to expensive I wish the doctors could prescribe it seems to help a little I'm sure the 500mil or higher would really help non addictive

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I also had this issue!! My Houston Walgreens location had Watson's up until this last refill, i don't know if they were actavis or not but i can tell you, they didn't do anything for my pain! (Ive spent 217 days in the hospital over the last year so I'm on a pain management regimen of Fentanyl patches and, for any breakthrough pain, norco). Itd be really helpful if the medication I'm given actually worked!!

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Is it only Walgreens that is filling prescriptions with the 2172 pill? Just need to know because I'll change pharmacies. These are terrible and make me sick unlike other generics.

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Re: Kelly (# 19)

Unfortunately, Walgreens has changed to the Actavis brand as Actavis bought out the Watson brand. The Watson name is now owned by Actavis and is only used on certain medications. The Actavis brand no longer manufacturers the Watson hydrocodone using the Watson name brand. I had to change pharmacies because I was told by the pharmacist at the.local Walgreens that they would only carry the Actavis brand going forward. You are correct in saying that the Actavis brand hydrocodone is awful. It is a as close to a placebo as I have ever taken. I got through the pills even though they were truly ineffective. I moved my prescription to a different pharmacy that carries the Mallincrodt brand and it is okay. I am in the process of getting the name brand approved by my insurance because two pharmacists said the name brand Vicodin is always consistent in quality. I have seen some diss the Mallincrodt brand but I have found it to be at least serviceable. Light years ahead of the Actavis brand.

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Re: w john (# 33)

Nope your completely right. ?? I spoke with a pharmacist today that said she wished it wasn't that way but there is nothing anyone could do. They did tell me that many people are complaining about the pills marked IP110 not working for them at all. So options are limited. I hope my pain management will find something else to ease my pain.

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Re: RobinE (# 34)

After having my prescription refilled for YEARS at Walgreen's I just picked up the script without looking at it. When I got home and looked at the pills I found out that they were "Actavis" and not Watson. I took them and they were absolutely awful. In fact they were so bad that I really thought they gave me sugar pills or some other placebo. I moved my prescriptions from Walgreen's to another pharmacy because the pharmacist told me that they did not carry ANY "Actavis" meds. I now have a better manufacturer and we will see how long this lasts. I want to titrate down completely off this medication completely because of the political climate surrounding pain meds I feel that things will only get worse--not better.

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I am posting to my own original post to correct a statement I made in the previous post. The Actavis brand was actually bought out by Watson---not the other way around. According to information I found on Google Watson actually bought out Actavis in 2014. Watson quit producing generic hydrocodone (which was a decent generic formulation) and went to the pills marketed under the Actavis brand name. I was dispensed the Watson brand generic hydrocodone for many years and never complained about it. In January of 2018 I went to Walgreen's to fill my prescription and when I got home I realized that they had dispensed the Actavis brand. I tried them and immediately noticed the difference. The Actavis brand generic hydrocodone was AWFUL. I changed pharmacies the next month and got a more servicable product made by Malincrodt. It is not great but better than Actavis. I have been advised by TWO different pharmacists from two different pharmacies to ask my Doctor to prescribe the brand name Vicodin as it is more consistent in quality than the generics. The only problem is that the name brand is not an approved product and I have had to go to my insurance to attempt to get the name brand approved. I was quoted a price from $189 for 120 7.5/325 pills up to $279 for the same number of pills without insurance. I was denied initially and I had to send them a recap of my medical history and I am currently awaiting the answer to my appeal. I moved last year and my Doctor has only a brief medical history on me so, while I have spoken to her about getting the name brand and she has no objection, she cannot help me much with my case as I have moved twice while I have been on this medication and the medical records are spread out over three Doctors and two States for over 10 years. We will see what happens.

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It appears that I am responding to myself but here goes. As I posted earlier it was recommended by TWO pharmacists from TWO different pharmacies that I have my Doctor prescribe the name brand Vicodin 7.5/325 as the generics are ineffective.and the name brand is much more consistent in formulation and efficacy. Of course, the name brand medication is not on my insurance company's approved list so I asked for an exception and stated with specificity WHY I needed the name brand and NOT the generic formulation. My request was denied because they said enough supporting information was not supplied. I sat down and wrote a long explanation of all of the reasons that I need the name brand medication as opposed to the generics. Today I was informed that my appeal was once again denied. They just restated the reasons for my first denial without even taking into consideration the stated FACTS and REASONS that I need the name brand medication. They had the gall to suggest that I be prescribed a much stronger pain medication just to avoid approving my request. I have already went through "step therapy" and they want me to go through this again. My current Doctor has only been my provider for 15 months and has no records on me that go back any further. I have moved twice and had four different providers and been on pain medications for over 10+ years. I am appealing their nonsense immediately and will keep everyone advised on the nonsense being stated by my insurance provider. They are only interested in the money aspect of this and they are paying absolutely zero attention to the FACTS.

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Re: w john (# 37)

The current status of my appeal is that I have now got to appeal to an Administrative Law Judge. The appeal was mailed via Certified Mail and I am awaiting further instructions/responses. The second level of appeal to a company called "Maximus Federal Services" just got a rehash of the same denial that I received from my Insurance company. They CLAIMED that they had an in-house Doctor look over my application and their in-house Doctor said no proof was provided from my current Doctor to support my need for the brand name medication. My current Doctor has only treated me for 15 months as I have moved and she does not have my previous health records. She does not have any records to support her intervention here. If a Doctor is going to make a statement they had better have medical records to back up their statement. So anyway I have appealed further and I will see where this goes but I am afraid that it is just going to be more of the same but at least I understand that this appeal will be heard in front of a live person and I will get to rebut the insanity that the previous readers of my written appeal kept rehashing. Oh, BTW even though I have stated in numerous places in my previous appeals that I want to try the name brand medication (because of efficacy and HONEST strength issues) in a 7.5./325 strength they say in my appeal that I am asking for "ES" and NOT what I am asking for. Never one time does the strength "ES" appear anywhere in my appeal papers (except by them). Maybe 7.5/325=ES in their minds.

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Re: Kelly (# 19)

No, it's not just Walgreens. I have been on 5/325's for a few years. They have always read, " m365 ", but I went for my refill this month, and received the 2172. I didn't notice until I was home and taking one. City Drug in my town is where I fill meds. All these pills have done is give me migraines and feel super dizzy. It's obvious that they are not the legitimate hydrocodone/acetaminophen that we have all been taking in the past. It really is unfortunate.

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Re: Gloria (# 42)

I have found no generic hydrocodone that is very close to the actual name brand Vicodin. I am suing my health insurance carrier becauseTWO pharmacists told me that the generics had been badly reformulate and recommended the name brand to avoid the quality issues.

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Re: Kelly (# 19)

So did DEA or anybody respond to you because I feel I got fake ones too I have 10 / 325 and I put going to Walgreens because I think I got fake ones I think they had that Tramadol rather than codeine and I also believe that they were white instead of yellow

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To everyone who takes a synthetic opiate...

Please pass along this info to anyone in pain and to anyone who loves or cares about someone in pain! It's the sick reality in American for many years now...

ALL synthetic opiates have been reformulated to inhibit the oxytocin release from the pituitary gland which accounted for 75% of the effectiveness of the drugs! This has been going on for years now since the last president for those of you who try to blame Trump. Trump shows no signs of undoing Obama's nightmare upon legitimately suffering Americans, so his hands are just as dirty in my book! No politician is going to touch this until the public sees all the suicides from uncontrolled severe pain and all the stories of NO quality of life anymore!!! Believe me the government and media are desperately hiding the truth from the voting public because it attacks BOTH political parties!

You wonder why your medications are very ineffective on your pain now? Now you know! Look it up in a PDR aka Physician Desk Reference it will show the oxytocin release has been inhibited. This has absolutely nothing to do with prescribing limits! It's about inferior ineffective medications! Although they've made a lot of doctors prescribe less of a drug that is 75% less effective!
Think about that for a few minutes... That's what I call an outrageous scam and on suffering people too!

Take less of a far less effective drug? The government, big pharma, pharmacists and doctors all knew about this reformulation!
Then they called you addict, you have a tolerance or whatever terminology they could create to sell the big LIE! Look at all those people who lied to your face or omitted the truth for deceptive purposes! That's what I call a truly insane monumental scam on suffering Americans!

Am I angry? I'm still insanely angry and I've known this for a while now. I'm writing this from my bed because I'm in so much pain that I can't tolerate it enough to get out of bed and I'm on 150mg of oxycodone, but it's 75% less effective so get the picture?

I had epidural and peridural abcessess from a staff infection back surgery in 1989 and the hospital gave me IV steroids for 10 days while I had the infection making it a superbug!!! Needless to say I'm severely scared around 6 sets of major nerve bundles and the lower part of my spinal cord. Yes, I am the poster boy of severe pain and they destroyed any quality of life that I ever hoped to have... Outside of palliative care which I've avoided because of a lot of things I'll have to give up... It's taken me sometime to come to terms with what has been done to us! The weakest members of society... And no one cares! It makes me angry and makes me cry because up against this overreaching out of control government I'm going to suffer immensely till the day I die because of addicts who abused my only avenue for some type of quality of life!

This is having alot of unintended bad side effects, but the government doesn't care! Look around medschat at all the different horrible side effects people are having on these reformulated drugs. They got big pharma to do it to stop abuse. They figured if you can't feel high you won't abuse it... But people in severe pain never feel high and our insane non-medically educated government cannot accept that FACT! Where does that leave the people in real pain? The government could care less because stopping addicts from abusing our life saving medications is all their narrow minds can see! Talk about tunnel vision! And it created the biggest herion epidemic in the history of America and yet the government is still trying to blame US the suffering Americans for their enormous blunders...

Don't worry you can't sue anyone! Myself and others have already tried and no law firm will touch it even though it's very underhanded. The government has a stacked deck against us all and no one cares because of the FAKE opioid crisis!

The only hope is to get millions of people to raise cain about this destruction of effective pain medication because of addicts! Why should innocent people suffer in pain because of addicts? Talk about an insane injustice against innocent suffering Americans!!! Only our corrupt overreaching government could be so evil as to think they're helping people! This is true insanity at its highest levels!

Until the voting public is extremely outraged by this nothing will happen! We're the squeaky wheels and if we want justice we have to let everyone know what the government got big pharma to do! Making innocent Americans in pain suffer because of drug addicts! It truly is the most low down injustice that I've seen in many decades!

Now go tell everyone you can the truth! If you get hurt the government has destroyed all pain medications effectiveness and you will needlessly suffer because of this should you be unfortunate enough to become severely injured, in severe pain and live outside a hospital!

Basically because of their failed war on drugs they attacked the weakest members of society who are unable to really speak up because they destroyed their quality of life by destroying the only thing doctors had left to treat severe pain! I personally know of 12 people who've committed suicide because their pain was no longer being controlled by inferior reformulated synthetic opiates! Not because a doctor reduced their meds, but because the medications are ineffective on severe pain!

Do you think anyone in government will be charged with involuntary manslaughter for this? That will never happen even though they're as guilty as can be!

Know that you know what's been done to your quality of life medications, never stop talking about it to anyone who will listen. If a pharmacist or doctor wants to refute this. Tell them, let me see your PDR and I'll show you the oxytocin release from the pituitary gland has been inhibited rendering the medication 75% less effective than before the reformulation occurred! Just look up said synthetic opiate and ask, what happened to oxytocin? Busted!

But the most important witness is US! What is YOUR quality of life been since reformulation to stop oxytocin! That's the most important part of all!

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Re: Mark (# 49)

Wow. THANK YOU! For last couple years I just knew my generic oxycodone/acetimonophen 10/325 I’ve been taking under strict pain mgmt for 18yrs with not one side effect, able to lead a tolerable existence pain threshold seemingly changed “overnight!” throwing me back to ground zero w/my degenerative disc spine, spinal stenosis...all of it! After 4 failed surgeries & countless failed procedures Opiate Pain Mgmt was given to me as last alternative like a miracle 18 yrs ago!

I just knew there had to have been a drastic pharmacology formulation change! My whole body & mind have suffered a complete 180! I’ve complained, studied, you name it to figure this out.

You r so right; our doses have been cut in half & on top of that the pills have been reformulated to be ineffective & making us sick on purpose! They forget the yrs of research done by Dr’s to originate Opiate Pain Mgmt; quite an unwarranted slap in their faces for their years of research & study!

I swear, Its a form of grouped genocide in my opinion. So its all about the blocking of the oxytocin release in our bodies! Obviously as well, the filler they r using to block this process is making us very sick! Worst is the fact this was done behind our backs...no testing on us! I’d think that fact in itself would most definitely justify a class action suit for us LEGITIMATE CHRONIC PAIN PATIENTS!

Thank you for letting us finally know the true science behind this & that we are not going crazy after all.

I am so very sorry for your circumstance dear one as we are all being needlessly tortured & falsely branded. The NIH’s Pain Report is a site you & all must link to. They are working tirelessly on our behalf, amen! Please Mark, asap submit your findings to the Nat’l Pain Report; they need your facts & input!

Godspeed!

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Re: Mark (# 49)

I understand your frustration. When you say "Don't worry you can't sue anybody" what you really mean is that you cannot find anyone to take this case on a contingency basis. You could hire any of a great number of medical malpractice firms so long as you paid them by the hour and had enough money to give them a big retainer up front PLUS filing fees and other fees like deposition charges that could run into the thousands of dollars. Also, you would need to have pain pills from several manufacturers professionally tested and analyzed to prove your case.

My guess is the MONEY to file and bring this case would be more than a normal person could afford to bear. What about a class action suit? Same problem. The class action firms will not take on a case of this nature in the politically aggressive state we are in now. They would probably not take this case on even if it was done on a cash basis because they would have to work and they only want to file the easy cases without the political baggage. I buy into exactly what you post about but without the money to follow through on this everyone is just stuck. If I was independently wealthy I would gladly take this on as a service to everyone that has been aggrieved by this nonsense but I am not.

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Re: w john (# 20)

Here is an update to my case. After appealing every adverse decision I received I finally ran out of options. I cannot afford to pay for the Vicodin 7.5 out of pocket so I am stuck with a generic. Here are the things I learned. Pharmaceutical companies are allowed to LEGALLY only put in 80% of the active ingredient. For example, if you are prescribed a 7.5 mg Vicodin or Norco pill the manufacturer is allowed by law to put in 6.0 of the active ingredient. That is only part of the story. The manufacturers have reduced the oxytocin in a pain pill by 70%. The awful thing about that is in an attempt to make these pills "nonaddictive" the oxytocin was taken out but in removing the oxytocin also removed the effectiveness of the pills rendering them slightly more effective than an over the counter medicine. The legal users of these pain pills have been hit with a double whammy. A reduction in the effective ingredient by 20% AND having 70% of the oxytocin removed. The drug addicts and thieves go on with their life as usual because they use illegal substances and steal from their friends and relatives as usual. The only people being penalized by this so called "opioid crisis" are the legal users of pain medications that need them to sustain any quality of life. Many have been on these legal prescriptions for 10+ years and are having these pain reducers taken from them in an attempt to regulate the heroin users and thieves.

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Re: w john (# 55)

Yep! That's exactly what happened and it's all legal!

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Re: Mark (# 56)
And it will remain legal until some group musters up the integrity to challenge the status quo. I KNOW it would be hard but it would not be impossible. The word impossible says “I’m possible” in its very spelling. Again, this would require some group to get involved because of the expense involved which would be overwhelming for the average person. I have seen a formula for success previously but it took a group taking on this issue that could over come the expense and also has the tenaciousness to see it through. What has been done to chronic pain sufferers is atrocious. It is like clearing the books of a robbery by charging a person who can prove they never committed the offense with the offense. The different groups cannot get the actual criminals so they go after innocent people. It makes it look like they are doing something when what they are doing is twisted and perverse.

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It is nice to know that Walgreens in Santa Clarita is not a 24 hour pharmacy. I hope the pharmacist Patel got fired for his personal involvement with us who wanted out RX filled. He has no business questioning our rx from the doctors. He was so worried about our business and not minding his. I filed a complaint against him and Walgreens with the FDA. I want to sue him and Walgreens. Bad place to go

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Re: John H (# 58)
Unfortunately, “Patel” has every right to question any script he has been asked to fill especially if it is past the Doctor’s normal hours and you are unknown to him as a patient. Here is where there is a disconnect: Many pharmacists try to get involved in your treatment plan. The Pharmacist has no medical training to analyze medical information, especially information they do not have any access to. Pharmacists do not know your medical issues, they do not have access to it, and they do not have any right to get involved in you and your Doctors analysis of your medical issues but they do this anyway. Another problem is their attitude. Many of them are mean spirited and rude and the Pharmacy is fine with that. Anytime a Pharmacist can run off a pain pill customer they are applauded by their upper management. If they do not fill your script that means you are one less potential problem for them. Not only do I believe that “Patel” was not fired he probably got an “attaboy” from his Supervisors.

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