Lexapro Brand Versus Generic Escitalopram (Page 3)

I have taken 30mg of Lexapro for past 4 years. After the deaths of my son and his wife in a plane crash the depression and anxiety were more than I could bear. This past May I was changed to the generic escitalopram. God Forbid!!!! What a nightmare. Within three weeks I was suicidal, I was going through SSRI withdrawals which are vicious. I am now paying over $225.00 per month for Brand Lexapro as my insurance will NOT cover it even with prior auth or any other reason. My Medicare Advantage plan leaves a lot to be desired even though I pay a $152.00 per month premium. Has anyone else had problems with the generic Lexapro? My pharmacist said I am not the first.

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What site can you order the Canadian Lexapro from??? Is it legitimate?
Thanks

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I was taking Lexapro 10mg for 11 years. I went through yer of my young daughter battling cancer, and didn't suffer depression that time. Anxiety, but not depression, think God. Lat year I also was switched to th generic brand. My stressor were nothing compared to my past, yet I became so mentally debilitated, I thought I would die. I am an RN,and couldn't work for 6 weeks. I couldn't get out of bed. My family had an intervention, I tried to tell them it was the meds. My Dr. Told me that FDA allows 33% LESS efficacy of all generics! They are also thickly coated, so they dont dissolve in the small intestine where most absorption takes place. I am on brand again. Was $110/ month, now just increased to $155. ALL my generic drugs had to be DOUBLED in the dose to work!!

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Thank you for caring.

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Hi. It isn´t but some people stil try it. The biggest problem is that you never know what you might find in those pills. A lot of times you see on the news counterfeits beeing caught. Counterfeits claiming that they are from Canada but the meds come from elsewhere( as a european pharmacist who was worked in this field I know that is true). My regards

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I, too, was switched from Lexapro to Escitalopram. It was literally moving from something that "contained" my high anxiety to bringing it back. With my short temper and impatience reappearing, I sensed my #3 spouse was ready to pack it up. I thought the problem was psychological (in my head). But my wife convinced me to go back to Lexapro and now she is a happy woman again. Go figure!

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Not sure if anyone has tried contacting the manufacturer directly, but sometimes they are willing to pay for most or even all of your script if you tell them you are thinking of switching to cheaper competitor.
My own father-in-law was advised to try this with his $6,500 a month (yes, per month) injection for his M.S. They agreed to pay for all but $10 per month!

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I swtiched to the generic of Lexapro because the co-pay was much less money. I noticed no difference with Escitalopram so I was happy to save the money. This was at least a year ago. Gradually my trigger level for anxiety became lower, and I started to have loud outbursts with others. I didn't connect the dots until these became more frequent. Depression returned within a few months, and finally I read a depression forum post, that the generic was hit or miss for effectiveness. After reading this topic I am picking up the brand name today. How can drug companies distribute a generic that will unleash dangerously violent anxiety attacks. In my case I could have hurt myself or others.

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I am going through the same thing. I went from paying 40-$65.00 for lexapro a month since 2006 to all of a sudden $180.00 in 2014. After a ridiculous amount of phone calls to my doctor, insurance company and pharmacist . . .which kept going in circles for 3 months -and I AGAIN got the doctor to request a medical need for the name brand . . .they tell me in March that the $180.00 is the discount. Without insurance it should cost well over $400.00. This is insane. So I am definitely going to start ordering from Canada but I am screwed for the next 3 weeks unless I just suck it up and spend 180 dollars for the 3rd month in a row. I am single mom and teacher -clearly this is not in my budget. So for 7 days now I have been on the generic and hating it. I am irritable, short tempered, unhappy for no reason and have awful headaches and on and off very achy. 2 weeks ago I was the happiest I have ever been. This is not OK to mess with our bodies like this.

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I was on brand name Lexapro for about 2 years, then switched to Celexa (citalopram) and was told that they were interchangeable. Celexa did NOTHING, absolutely nothing. I gave it about a month and then tried taking generic escitalopram and within an hour of ingesting only 20mg (i used to take 80mg) i became violently ill. It started with dizziness, dry mouth and my heart rate increasing until it was throbbing so hard inside of my chest, my extremities felt ice cold even though i was hot and sweating profusely, my stomach ached high and low and i vomited for an hour before passing out from exhaustion. I was was dizzy and bedridden the rest of the day and night. This happened again when i attempted to take only 5mg, it was less severe but still terribly unpleasant, felt like i did some dirty Molly, it was awful. I am beside myself, i don't know where to go from here, Lexapro was the only thing that has ever worked, i never had any adverse side effects, my libido even increased!!! Maybe it kept me a bit on the manic side, but by god i was happy. And now the fear of my heart exploding is keeping me away from the only drug that has made a difference. Has anyone has something like this happen to them, so soon after ingestion of such a low dose? And could it be only because it was the generic version?

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Celexa work for me for a few months, but the effect has now dwindled to nothing. On top of that I can now barely get out of bed most mornings. Considering that the Lexapro was treatment for anxiety, this is now worse than no drugs at all.

It's really frustrating that there's a perfectly good drug that worked consistently for me for years and I'm forced to piss around with alternatives that are really screwing with my life. It's not even a question of money anymore. If I try to get the name brand, they sit on the prescription, try to substitute, reject it, bounce it back, require new approvals in writing, require voice confirmation for the charge, etc. I'm apparently going to have to jump through hoops every single time I request a refill. They go out of their way to be as difficult as possible. I only switched this last time because they spent 5 weeks jerking me and my doctor around and I ended up without any meds for 3 of those weeks.

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Hi,

something similar happened to me. I'd been on brand lexapro for several years and somewhere along the way, I was put on a generic. I had no trouble. then, I changed jobs which meant a change in health insurance plans. I got a Teva generic with my new insurance company and after about 4 days, started feeling a terrible withdrawal. Before that I think it had been a Mylan generic. Anyway, it took me about a week to figure out what was going on, but once I got back onto normal lexapro and I felt a serious "adjustment" occur. If the drugs were the same this shouldn't occur. It took about a month to get back to normal. Since then the Doctor always indicates that I need the brand.

Even so, last week I filled the prescription again before grabbing a flight, and it wasn't until I got to my destination that I realized that they'd done it again...reverted the to the generic, this time by Camber. Of course, I'm going through an adjustment all over again as I revert back to brand.

ugh.

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Hi Lin,

I did not read the whole row of replies, but your complaint is anything but bizarre. Unfortunately, the 'all generics are created equal' concept is, in all almost all cases, as flawed as the notion of 'there's nothing that can be done' regarding the problem. Most likely you do not have to pay out of pocket. There are actually assistance programs that actually work - it might sound like a fairy tale, but it's more common than you think. No one is going to go on the internet and post about how comfortable they feel now that their medical issue is solved and problems dominate most of the stuff we see written. FURTHERMORE YOUR DOCTOR CAN REQUEST AN AUTHORIZATION FORM, the concept of 'prior authorization' is another one of those things that seem to be possible only 'elsewhere', 'a long time ago', or 'for other people but not me'. This is false. If your doctor devotes more time to working with your insurance and less time shrugging his shoulders and telling you about the FDA guidelines about generic drug approval and the rigorous demands that need be met before a generic makes it out onto the market etc, you will most likely get your medication, whether it costs $200 or $200,000, insurance companies usually have the means to cover their patient base a hundred times over, and there are plenty of people taking medications which cost more per tablet without a generic equivalent therefore covered by most insurance, than you pay yearly for your escitalopram. 1. call your insurance company or the number on the back of your card, so you can speak to a person/human being, recovering claims and coverage. 2. tell them or if applicable, write them, and explain how you have been taking escitalopram from the same manufacturer for years etc, and indicate that you encountered severely disturbing symptoms/adverse effects around the time that you noticed by accident that the tablets look different. 3. DO NOT SAY THAT THE GENERIC IS BAD , merely word things in such a way your statement makes it obvious to the person on the other end that it's possible the switch from one manufacturer to another caused some sort of anomaly. IF you complain about the poor quality of the generic, you will be heard and 'the situation will be looked into' but since most anti-generic complaints are the result of placebo effect (this much is true, and I am not insinuating this is the case here) you will be taken as seriously as the rest of the thousands of people who call in daily to complain - meaning absolutely nothing will be done and you will also most likely be marked so that any future attempts to complain or otherwise intervene, will be automatically rescinded. 4. You are taking a psychotropic medication. You have to realize you are often going to be treated as a 'psychiatric patient' especially when you complain. Not only does this save an insurance co money it also allows them to justify their negligence. 5. After you complain you will (almost always) be given the code to obtaining the authorization form - typically this involves your doctor calling a number and ordering a form. Filling out this form might take as long as ten minutes and might ensure in as much as 4 phonecalls in the span of a month, so if your doctor simply disagrees, consider going to another doctor - depending on the area where you live, the more 'metropolitan' the area, the more common it is for these grueling prior auth. processes to take place. It might prove to be cheaper seeing a specialist once every three months or even less for your Lex, instead of paying out of pocket. So please find out from the back of your card about the prior auth. process. Your doctor doesn't HAVE to do this, but if you are very calm and persistent and continue to complain, do not be afraid to ask him WHY he simply declines to take part in the process. Most doctors will refuse to, but most doctors also want to help their patients, and if your distress is real and this much is evident, your doctor will understand that you are not simply buying into hype you read on some forum somewhere but are actually having an issue. At this point your doctor might take action because though he does not HAVE to do a PA for Lex, he does have to follow a certain code of behavior, and ignoring endless complaints from you would make that an issue should you be willing to take it to court. I am not saying you should threaten your doctor with legal proceedings, but I am saying that no doctor or any other person in their right mind, for that matter, wishes to go through the court system if the issue can be resolved by a phonecall and something that culminates in ten minutes of frustration in the worst case scenario. So be persistent and ask for a prior auth. which will make your insurance look into covering the costs of the non generic escitalopram hydrobromide, including doing so at a dose that is 'above normal' (another issue you might have to tackle). At the same time go the manufacturer's website, call Forest labs, they are very polite on the phone and will listen - there is no guarantee they will do anything - but they will definitely listen. If your income is too high or if you simply fail to establish that the manufacturer helped you but the generic substitute has ruined your life, it is in the interest of the manufacturer to assist you by covering costs either fully or partially, because this is a good thing on their record in at least two ways - it establishes they are sympathetic and their humanism goes beyond pressing tablets and launching ad campaigns - it also becomes 'evidence' if you will, that they can use to help assert that their formulation is superior to any other [generic]. So essentially by getting coverage from the manufacturer [forest labs will not go hungry, I promise, for covering your expenses] you are helping the manufacturer make money. It is in their interest, and you're not asking for handouts. Furthermore they actually work with your insurance and your doctor in establishing all this, so it's not that they simply send you a coupon in the mail, they actually stir things up before they start paying themselves, should that be the case. Please don't sit there and take it. It's easier to do and takes less time than it took me to write this. A shame this is so anonymous or I'd gladly leave my email to help you out with this - it's an absurd problem that should not even exist, and the lack of knowledge is astounding, regarding prior auth., discounts, and also manufacturer-patient assistance programs that have nothing to do with any insurance. Best of luck - it's NOT IMPOSSIBLE IF YOU STICK TO IT, I cannot stress that enough. Otherwise, take comfort in the fact that Lexapro went generic fairly recently, so as more manufacturers roll out their version of escitalopram, the problem will [as in the past] eventually fade away or just fade out. But that can take forever. So be persistent.

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I'm going thru the same thing. Lexapro worked great for 3 years, and then I had to take the generic (insurance reasons). The manufacturer Watson's was not too horrible, but when I refilled, Walgreens had switched manufacturers to Camber. I was so dizzy, I could not walk across the room without holding onto the wall. Horrible panic attacks began again. Bad bad experience. Going to try to find a way to afford Lexapro again.

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Iskander, you're absolutely right about prior authorization. I went down that path almost two years ago and my provider made it impossible to get my drugs. Every time they came up for renewal, they would "reject" it, insist that I call in and engage in a high-pressure sales pitch to accept the generic, require me to get my doctor to submit a new authorization, shuffle me around different departments, etc. It would literally be weeks before they'd fill the prescription. I actually agreed to pay the outrageous $300+ per refill and they STILL made it almost impossible to get my meds.

So, the path of least resistance was to just keep trying generics that didn't work, caused new problems or actually turned my anxiety into full-fledged depression.

Luckily, my doctor took another kick at them this year and managed to get my Lexapro back (at least for one refill....keeping my fingers crossed that it sticks). It took about 5 days to kick in, but I'm happy to say that the issues that I thought were potentially permanent, aren't.

For the vast majority of people, generics will do the trick. But it's pretty obvious that this isn't true for everyone. The drug companies, health insurance companies, etc. need to acknowledge this.

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I have been on 40 mg brand Lexapro for about 2.5 years. My panic/anxiety disorder was so bad I was non functional as a human being before I got on Lexapro. I recently bought generic Lex from Teva pharma and after 4 weeks I am going backward and feeling withdrawal symptoms. I have reported this to Teva but I am going back to brand name. The Teva generic is not as strong as the brand name. Lexapro brand had me totally back to normal now I am falling apart again.

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I have tried generic Lexapro, celexa, and Prozac...and yes,a nightmare.lexapro worked wonders for me as I've been going thru menopause.it made me feel like myself.when they came out with the generic I only took it five days but that was enough to realize I did not feel anything like myself...just in a daze and no libido available! I have a great marriage bed and that was not happening! Lexapro actually helps the libido for me..it's got to be the best ssri available. my Dr. showed I had tried the others with no relief and I called the insurance company and they finally approved me for a year.

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Hi All, I was on Lexapro for about five years when my mail-order pharmacy switched me to the generic without my knowledge. I'm not saying they didn't notify me, but if they did, I didn't see it.

One day I realized I had become anxious, irritable and depressed, thinking of quitting my job, leaving my husband, moving out-of-state, or maybe just ending it all. When I became suicidal, I realized something was terribly wrong. The next time I took my "Lexapro," I noticed an "M" on the pill, checked and realized I had the wrong med which turned out to be the generic. I arranged to go back to Lexapro and all went back to normal.

I am now 10-weeks post tapering off of Lexapro (one mg per month), I think what I might have been experiencing were the evil Lexapro withdrawal symptoms. Any thoughts? Do you all think the generic may have been the problem?

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On Lexapro for almost 10 years, no problems. Generic had me in fits after 2 weeks.

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I have had problems with TEVA myself. its is most likely the junk, u get when u make a drug. There are a lot of other stuff made. depending on the purity of the basic components, and how the steps are done, can be huge difference. The FDA does not have the funds to analyze drugs. They get a trial going and then run into huge problems, even many deaths, so the drug will not be tried again. drug companies need to pay the FDA to randomly run diagnostics, every year or so.

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Yes. The generic did absolutely nothing for me. When I brought it back to the pharmacy--they said a number of people had the same complaint. When I told my MD he said generics only have to be 70% the same as brand name products. Since then I have taken only brand name antidepressants / anti anxiety meds and have had no problems.

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