Generic Meds Vs Brand Name Meds

I have a question. Since being in this online community I have been mainly a part of the benzo club. I have seen a multitude of questions about which generic is better (company making I assume a stronger 1mg Xanax than another, as an example). I have taken generics of everything I can for decades and have never noticed any difference between generic and brand, or one generic compared to the generic by a different company but the same drug.

Is this actually something people experience or as I do, do you think it's just all in one's head? I had a friend who insisted that brand Valium were far superior to generic. I never noticed a difference, except in price. I'm referring to prescriptions. If these people are buying this stuff illegally, there's every possibility they're not even getting the drug. I once had a person try to pass off an Ibuprofen 800 as a 7.5 Vicodin. Little did he know my extensive experience with these drugs, but not everyone has that much knowledge about drugs according to what I read. Just curious.

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Hello, Robert! How are you?

I'm sure that there are some cases where it's just in someone's head, or they don't actually have the real medication if they've purchased illicitly…

However, there can actually be differences between the name brand and generics, as well as from one generic to another. According to the Hatch-Waxman Act of 1984, a generic is allowed to differ from the brand name by as much as plus or minus 20% of the active ingredient and generics do not have to measure against each other, just against the name brand, which means that one may be slightly higher in the amount of the active ingredient, while another may be lower in it.

Now, in many cases, this amounts to a very small percentage of the dose, so it doesn't make much difference. But, if someone has been taking a medication by one manufacturer or the name brand for a long period of time, then suddenly change, the fluctuation may be noticeable. They may also have problems if they're very sensitive to medications, which is a problem I've had with some of them.

Is there anything else I can help with?

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Robert, I can say with experience that yes, some generic brands of 1mg Xanax are different/less effective. I have Panic attacks, I take 1mg twice a day. at first I thought I was having increasing attacks, I was kind of freaked out because I've never had the need to increase my dose I've actually decreased when I feel I can. But I was given a different generic brand & it wasn't effective. So I researched it to see if it was possible . With that 20% window from brand name, that could be a big window when treating panic attacks. For example: say generic brand 1 (my usual brand) is 5% less than Name brand, I'm used to that because I've never had name brand. But then I get brand 2 & they've exercised their full 20% window. With panic attacks just like pain, your Body is going to react to that difference.

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Old post but I'll reply anyway. Yes they can absolutely differ between brand and generic and generic against generic. The Active ingredients may be different enough to notice, but the inactive ingredients make a big difference. And with name brand and high quality generics, some of those inactive ingredients are there to help or enhance the active ingredients.
As a practical example, I was switched from one generic of Adderall to another without knowing it. I was going nuts trying to figure out why they stopped working all of a sudden. Thinking some other med I changed maybe started to interfere with them, or something in my diest, etc. Eventually I realized it wasn't the same brand. Same size, same shape, different inscription. different color. pink was now orange. But looked about the same when I took them before I got out of bed in the morning. So, I would take 40 mg in bed, then another 0,10, or 20 a few hours later depending on how i felt. Which turned into 80 in bed, still would sleep, get up take 20. a little later take another 20 or 40. So about 50 mg of corepharma brand worked better and longer than 130mg of Aurobindo/NorthStar brand. It was a blind test. Did not even know I had started taking a new brand. So no bias in the experiment. Just the effects.

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Re: Verwon (# 1)

Verwon, usually your replies are quite good, but you are misquoting the bioequivalence here. It is not based on active ingredients. It is the difference in blood concentration at set intervals of the generic compared to the name brand in the same individuals. And the equivalence is based on the geometric mean of the data with the 90% confidence interval of the data points with in that +/- 20%. Which boils down to the vast majority of the time meds are within 5% blood concentration of the brands active ingredients over time.

That being said, they do not test for therapeutic equivalence meaning how well it actually works compared to the brand. And manufacturers are left to mostly self monitor once they get the ok to produce.

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