Hydrocodone-acetaminophen 10/325 By Mallinckrodt (Page 3) (Top voted first)

My pharmacy changed my meds from the yellow 10-325 v 3601 norco to the 10-325 white m367 mallinckrodt. I've been taking the yellows for years with no problems. Today I started the whites and feeling dizzy, a little weak, kind of panicky. What is different about the two meds that would cause this?

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Re: RhoRhoRho (# 3)
The manufacturer is, to my knowledge, allowed to LOWER or be off the effective ingredient by 20%. I am unsure WHY the Hatch Act in 1984 allowed this 20% discrepancy. I have never heard of any other group of manufacturers that has a special dispensation to just be "close" to what is stated on the label. These manufacturers have precise manufacturing equipment and they should easily be able to manufacturer a pill to the exact tolerances of the prescription. They seem to have no problem lowering the amount of the effective ingredients but in no case am I aware of the manufacturer raising the effective ingredient. If you have any evidence to the contrary please share it with us. Aside from the active or effective ingredient being lowered the manufacturers have removed, or severely reduced, other things from their pills (oxytocins for example) to make them less effective. These pain pills have been reengineered to make them less effective INTENTIONALLY. The manufacturers believe that if they are less effective that criminals will not take them on the street or steal them from their relatives or Pharmacies. In actuality the only people being severely affected are the chronic pain patients that have been taking their medications as directed and legally. Some for decades. I guess if they cannot get the real perpetrators of the problem then go after the "low hanging fruit" and by any means necessary.

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Re: Melody (# 123)

When I 'shopped' for non generic, name brand vicodin, I was grilled by the pharmacies about why I wanted them, etc. Just like you said, Melody. Why the hell do they think I want them? I am willing to pay, have a legal, Dr.'s script, so what gives these pharmacies the right to interrogate? I have not violated any law, doctor shopped, etc., yet I feel dirty after these conversations. Oh, and I never was able to find a pharmacy here in good 'ol California to fill the script. Mallingcrap Vicodin is garbage, yes, but I am unable to find an alternative.

'They'll' take the Norco/Vicodin away one way or another-if we provide valid scripts 'they' can't do much. But 'they' sure can control the quality. I, and you, are paying a high price for someone's addiction. I'm accountable for my actions, worked hard to live a good life, and this is my payback for doing the right thing? For being a good person? The DEA controls all aspects of narcotic production, I've read on more than one website. How many per month a manufacturer can produce, etc. Since DEA can't get a handle on the drug causing oh, so many deaths, (they'd like you to believe) and it makes them look bad to the money lenders for their budget, then why not screw with the quality. Check out the DEA's website and how they control the drug manufacturing. Tedious reading. What else have you got to do? If we were united, stood up and raised the alarm, we'd probably see some advances to our issues and causes. I think we are too diversified. I think as the aging poplulation we are, they just want us to go away, we're sucking good air.

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Re: madashell (# 131)
The reason a Chronic Pain patient should say to the Pharmacist is:" I am willing to pay for the name brand because the generics have been reformulated to the point that they are almost totally ineffective. I want to have the name brand because it is my understanding that they have not been reformulated and are consistent in quality". It is important to talk to your Doctor FIRST and make sure they are onboard and check off the box that says "no substitutions" on your script. Pharmacists should NOT ever get involved in your treatment plan but they do because they have been allowed to do it. Pharmacists DO have a medical background but it is in knowing which medicines are not made to mix with other medications. Even then they can be wrong if they would just ASK: How are these two pills being taken? They may learn something. Pharmacists do not FIRST OF ALL have your permission to discuss your treatment plan with your Doctor. Yes, if they see a combination they question they can ask about that but thats all. They do not have your medical records, they are not trained to examine you and they surely cannot write any scripts. However, Pharmacists are getting more and more involved in your treatment plan and they are not trained to do that. They are mainly trained to fill legitimate scripts. Pharmacists have entered into an area that, even though they have been allowed to get away with it, they are not supposed to enter into.

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Re: Ty Dollar Sign (# 136)

Getting the pills from the different manufacturers analyzed is the real rub. First, it is expensive. Trying to get someone to pay for all of this “analyzing” is just one of the rubs. To get an accurate picture one would have to get one of every pill, like hydrocodone, for example analyzed. If one wanted to find out what the breakdown is on any manufacturer like Amneal, one would need to have a 5 mg, 7.5 mg, and a 10 mg analyzed. Who would donate the pills? Then you would need to do the same thing for Mallinckrodt and any other manufacturers to get an accurate analysis. It would be important to get pills that were actually served to a retail customer. If the manufacturer donated any of the pills they could easily donate product specially manufactured for the test. If one was to do more than one manufacturer at least one could argue that it is an accurate sample. This is a big mess. For me, personally, Mallinckrodt is better than the Amneal product but they are all crap as far as that goes. With the precise manufacturing equipment available, it is incredible that a 1984 law is still allowed to stand giving the manufacturers the approval to only put in 80% of the active ingredient. As far as I am concerned when you say 7.5 mg of hydrocodone. That is what should be in the pill. NOT 6 mg as allowed by this archaic law.

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Re: ThunderHeart (# 119)

Same here, that stuff is pure trash! I have written to the company and the FDA. I've been on this medication for 5 years, I take 3 to 4 per day and the yellow Watson always helped my pain and I never had any side effects. This crap is the only thing on the market and it's all I've gotten in the past year and a half and I now have gotten non stop ringing in my ears, like crickets singing and I can barely move and scream in pain sometimes. This stuff is absolutely worthless. I finally, after 5 years, got my doctor to change mine to oxycodone and it works so much better! I'm afraid the ringing in my ears is permanent, it never ever goes away. I seriously believe they are only putting about 2 to 3 mgs. in each 10 mg. pill. I believe someone within their mfg. facility is gouging the codeine or whatever the active ingredient is. They must have some lax practices is all I can say because something is definitely going on. I am sure that stuff would be big money on the black market or on the streets, someone, if they are doing this could easily make themselves a millionaire. Either they're gouging the main ingredient or they're switching the good pills out with blanks, they can easily be made to look exactly like the authentic ones. All one would need is one of those pill presses and someone with a machine shop or access to one could easily make one with the same imprint, very easy. I used to own a CNC machine shop and engraving that imprint on a pill press would be nothing. I, myself, have read hundreds of messages on these boards with people all saying the same damn thing that we are about this brand, Mallinckrodt. How can we all be wrong? Answer: WE CAN'T. Someone please, if you know someone who works in a lab or is a scientist, please get these pills analyzed! I hope someone investigates this company and it comes out all over the news. We will all have a class-action lawsuit against them for the serious pain and suffering they've caused. Disclaimer: This message is just an opinion by the writer.

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Re: cliff j (# 139)

Cliff, I agree, that law needs to be null and void stat! We need a show like Dateline or 20/20 to get involved/investigate. They would then advertise for the participants, like find patients that actually get the pills prescribed and then follow them from the point of pick up at their pharmacy to the lab. This is the only way as it would be too difficult for us lay people to do it.

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Re: w John (# 158)

I am willing to give my pills up for analyzing purposes, they're not doing me any good. I think they're putting in 1 mg. instead of 10, this is my guess. It's either this or someone is switching the legit ones out for blanks that someone on the black market is manufacturing. We do not know what kind of supply chain takes place, it could be happening right in house where they're made, could be at the postal service/shipping service, drivers of the trucks, pilots of the planes, there's a whole chain of command that takes place where this could happen. It could also be happening through the pharmacy, the government could be making pharmacists give out these blank sugar pills. Also it could be the mfr. themselves in fear of overdoses so they're shorting the mgs. drastically in fear of lawsuits. I understand that the makers of Oxycontin were sued for lying about them not being addictive but WHAT the heck is the reason for states suing the makers of hydrocodone?? I've read where Mallinckrodt is getting sued too in the wake of this fake opioid crisis, on WHAT grounds?? They did NOT lie and say hydrocodone was not addictive, this is just a farking case of the crooked politicians jumping on the lawsuit bandwagon. NO one dies anymore from just opiates, it was abusers who were taking them with xanax, sleeping pills, and muscle relaxers and there were plenty of doctors prescribing these crazy dangerous cocktails too but this was 7 - 8 years ago or longer. The problem is there's still people dying from heroin and they group this in with legit opiates.

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Re: RhoRhoRho (# 3)

Google Rhodes Pharma and see all the complaints of their inferior Oxycodone.
Rhodes Pharma has been accused of inferior Oxycodone for years. CVS has started carrying their brand and it DOES NOT WORK! I'm in misery.
I've been on Oxycodone for years and never experienced anything like this with any other brand of Oxycodone.
I've had 2 back surgeries and about to have surgery on my neck. I'm in a great deal of pain and now suffering from Rhodes inferior Oxycodone.
I'm calling CVS first thing and reporting them everywhere I can find, including the FDA.

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Re: Tina (# 181)

18+ years taking two per day split in half per dose, some days only needing 3 halves and many days only needing one half dose in the morning. To break it down, no more than 20mg per day when these medications were the old formula. Those many years I have been engaged fully in the economy and now that the formula has drastically changed I rarely go to the movies, dinner and events. I have not yet cancelled my Part D but am very close and then going on the 4 and 8 dollar program pharmacies have just for emergency medications like antibiotics. My other option is to become an ex-patriot and move to a country that recognizes non cancer chronic pain patients. To other chronic pain sufferers please don't get angry or buy street drugs as that will make things much worse.

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I honestly do not know. All I know is that there is very little regulation on additives to generic drugs. Generic Hydrocodone MUST have at least 7 to 10 mg of the active ingredient.

When I took this drug, I immediately went into a massive allergic reaction.

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I found a pharmacy in Irvine Ca. that carries Qualitest. They will not take insurance for this product, but will for the Tris. They carge $1.50 per pill for the Qualitest Hydrocodone 10-325. Don't know if my insurance will reimburse, but find this policy odd and troubling. Any comments?

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I don't know. But there has to be some kind of an additive in the drug. I'm going to contact an attorney requesting a legal case.

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Firstly, Jennifer, the brand 'NORCO' is made by Actavis (formerly Watson Pharmaceuticals) & NOT by Qualitest, which is but another generic. Now hydrocodone bitartrate is not available at all outwith the USA - WHO Report 2014 and 2015 both state unequivocally that 100% of the world supply of that drug was consumed in the USA (unless, like me, one has a friend whom is able to get a prescription and send it on to me as required); this since the withdrawal in Europe of Knoll's DICODID, a 10mg tablet prescribed not as an analgesic, but as an antitussive for painful, dry cough. Without, may I add, the addition of acetaminophen (paracetamol) in ridiculously high doses - the actual maximum required for any synergistic effect increasing analgesic effect being around 60mg per 15mg hydrocodone; why they feel it necessary to add so much of that extremely hepatotoxic drug, which by itself has very little analgesic effect and is useful only really as an antipyretic, is a mistery to me as it serves no useful purpose whatsoever. I have tried several of the combination tablets: Qualitest V3601, Mallinckrodt M367, Watson 853 and IP 112 are the ones I recall. As they fill the 'analgesic gap' we have here between dihydrocodeine tartate (its parent drug, hydrocodone being more properly named 'dihydrocodeineone bitartrate') & morphine salts - there is nothing at all between the two in potency on the UK (and other European) market(s) - their availability wouod be a boon for those patients requiring something stronger than 'DF118 FORTE (dihydrocodeine tartrate) 40mg' and weaker than the weakest morphine preparation, 'Oramorph' (which contains so little morphine, only 5mg per 25mL, that bit is not even classified as a Controlled Drug).

My experience is that of the tablets I have mentioned, the 'M367' is by far the most effective, followed by Qualitest's 'V3601' yellow tablet. Recently I was sent the new 'Watson 853' WHITE tablet, 360 of them, and must say that they are the weakest and least effective ever had, why another mystery, since just because the company is now owned by Actavis, the composition of the tablet should never have changed; the same thing may be seen in the now-Actavis-owned Purepac yellow 2mg alprazolam tablets, which now feel considerably weaker than before. There are (out of literally hundreds of generic alprazolams made in the US), only TWO which would he considered even 'acceptable' to European consumers - Greenstone (owned by Pfizer and identical in every way to the branded XANAX tablets) & Qualitest's 'V2090' 2mg bar-shaoed tablet; not nearly as efficacious as the Greenstones, but at least acceptable, and equivalent to European Kela, maybe Teva - dependent on which facility they are made! - & "New Sandoz" - Sandoz USA's 'GG248/249' tablets are literally some of the poorest I have tried, and which are usually from India or Pakistan, as counterfeits, punch dies for the TDP-X series of tablet presses so beloved of counterfeiters being available for about $150 each; Watson ? 534 blue tablets and '853' punch dies are also commonly sold for those machines, and I have read so many posts from people who have bought 'hydrocodone' from that area at prices which seem impossibly low, being completely ignorant of the fact that the drug is not available outside the States, and there is not a single Web-based Pharmacy which ships from the US internationally AT ALL.

I have never yet come across a Mallinckrodt generic which is anything less than excellent, and they appear to make the finest generic opioids in the USA - a fact corroborated by the American Generics Association, who have voted their products best in the opioid class at least five times in the past ten years. The M367 hydrocodone/paracetamol are way ahead of any competition, only brand name Abbott VICODIN NEW HP 10/300mg white and Qualitest V3601 yellow being close to the same quality; the brand name tablet is far too expensive though (thanks to the self-regulation and endemic price-fixing in the American Pharma Industry) but would be my choice were they cheaper; not only myself, but the lady I often help out with a couple of days' worth of the Mallinckrodt won't consider any of the others at all!

Perhaps there is some bioavailability issues with the excipients used in Maloimckrodt's pills - though having checked them out, I see no obvious reason or substance there which would do such a thing, unlike the awful Auden clonazepam 2mg I have been dispensed since Roche withdrew their original Rivotril brand due to lack of sales (NHS 'dispense cheapest available generic' policy) forcing me to take either Roche's own originals from the Low Countries, or the cheaper - and in fact, BETTER - Galenika Roche-licenced Rivotril made in Serbia, along with Belgium, Netherlands, Hungary, Romania and Slovenia, where the highest quality medications in Europe are made and dispensed. (In Communist times, we would pay a relative fortune for benzodiazepines made in Romania, mostly by the State Pharma Company TERAPIA - meaning 'therapy' - and they were pretty much impossible to get hold of more than a few times annually, again from friends who were prescribed them. Hungary, Romania and Russia (Soviet Union as was) were renowned for their high quality and for being about the only countries one could purchase medazepam, a drug very similar to diazepam but with far less unwanted sedation, always a problem with diazepam even at low dosages.

Summing up my reply to Jennifer's original question, I can see no pharmacological reason for her side effects from Mallinckrodt 10/325mg hydrocodone/apap, and in my experience, their generic opiates are always amongst the finest one could possibly get in the US; their original brand temazepam 'Restoril', a powdered capsule - better than any tablet as binders are well known for inhibiting the body's take-up of temazepam, but nowhere even close to liquid concentrate-filled gelcaps (Normison brand, ex-Wyeth, now Pfizer or Aspen) or the unbeatable Oral solution 10mg/5mL, which contains absolutely nothing to prevent full oral bioavailability. AVOID PAKISTANI MADE NOVARTIS PK RESTORIL (which does not even hold a Mallinckrodt licence to use the brand name and which are roughly half the stated potency) WIDELY SOLD BY THE SAME KIND OF WEBSITE SELLING FAKE HYDRO, OXYCODONE, AND US-IMPRINT ALPRAZOLAM TABLETS! They have a brand called ALPROX which are a bright yellow and carry the Actavis/Purepac 'P039' imprint on a much rounder, thicker and brighter, almost electric yellow, 'bar'. You would be lucky to find one which contains any more than 1mg alprazolam!

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Tris Pharma hydrocodone contains no hydrocodone. Actually feel like I am being poisoned.

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Tris hydrocodone imprint C115 worthless. Anyone else ever try these? You can take 5 of them and feel totally normal. Always had M360 and i only need 1 to work. Tris in my opinion makes fake meds.

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I have been taking yellow 10/325 for ever. Went to Kroger they gave me the white one in so much pain they Don't work know have a swollen throat hurts like all get out this not right. Mallinckrodt should be fined jailed put out buisness

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Mallinckrodt and Amneal are both garbage!! I've had such bad reactions to both. I had to change pharmacies to get away from this filth the say are painkillers! They both made me sick!! Watson and Qualitest NEVER made me sick. Obviously the fluctuations are not slight! I know my body well enough to know that the fillers used by these 2 companies are rot!! I will NEVER take either again. No company should be allowed to play with pain medicine! I'm tired of this s***! It's my life they are messing with. They don't feel my pain!

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Re: RhoRhoRho (# 3)

I found out the same as you!! Watson sold their generics to Teva, at least that is what I was told by Watson. Teva said probably won't change Watson's formula, because it's too expensive to change it!! I'm going hollistic. Amneal made me so so very sick!! Almost had to go to ER!! Then I did a home remedy and I'm still sick, but better! Good luck all!!!

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Re: blankfrank (# 11)

I agree with you. I had the same problem with Mallinckrodt. I was so sick I was throwing up. I have been on Hydrocodone for years and never had such agony. What was worse they made me shake agitated and just plain miserable. With all the side affects it seemed to make my pain feel worse. I am a single mom of 3 and take care of a disabled father. I never thought that I would have to compromise my life over medication. I had an appointment with a physiatrist and off course was sick taking this medication. He labeled me a major maniac depressant. Now my MD won’t refill my prescriptions. I moved and had to start with new Drs. My family and I were exposed to toxic black Mold for 5 years. It was so bad that our air test was deemed condemned. It was no wonder we all were so sick. That alone had severe consequences and added to my pain. I also have ADHD. I picked up my meds yesterday and had no idea the pharmacy went to Mallinckrodt for those too. Now, I’m just plain mad this company can now manufacturer this medication too. I feel the pharmacy should warn you before you fill your script that they changed manufacturers if you give them your business. I am on state ins. because my ex doesn’t pay the required ins. so I have had to turn to the state. I wonder sometimes if this is why I get the worst medication on the planet. Now I have to go to pain management which is in this day and age guilty to proven innocent. I come from the days you could talk frank with your MD and they listened and helped. Since my amazing Dr retired in 2014 I have become a seeker because I don’t want to be sick and in pain. I have 4 severely damaged discs with bone spurs that have affected my spine. I am out of patience. Pain management wants me to do physical therapy. Great make sure I get the medication that works and I will do what is ordered.

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Re: lisa (# 126)

No generics at this point. Ive had side affects from them all except Qualitest, but they are not making Norco and more.
Generics are being made in India and other dirty countries where the FDA does not watch over the making of medicine.
This should NEVER BE ALLOWED!! This is medicine!!

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