Watson Is Now Actavis - Norco (Page 2)
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My pharmacist that I have known for years due to chronic pain from cancer/severe spinal injuries and a totaled knee, told me last week that it is the DEA that has created the change in ALL pain meds. I have been on Watson Norco for 10 years and now I am in severe withdrawal with actavis buying out Watson. It is unbearable and my pharmacist said that people will DIE because of not being forewarned or informed ahead of time. This is all due to the people that use the drugs recreationally; and whatever else they do has ruined it for us real patients. We all know the DEA is like God and they don't even care about us real patients that have medical records, etc. I have been suffering for over a month now and my pain doc is on an extended vacation. Thank goodness for my pharmacist at least being honest about what is going on. If you Wikipedia Watson you will see Actavis and they are putting the Watson name on a pill that according to my pharmacist is now a regulated/time released pill with binders so it may not be abused. I personally have never felt "euphoria" on these after 10 years but DO have serious/severe pain and now have nerve pain like crazy. Does anyone know if this is part of withdrawing? Watson always worked best for me. My pharmacist also said that the binders can prevent the drug from being absorbed into the gut if you have any issues there. That is where my cancer is and they are not being absorbed. You cannot even bite them barely as they are very hard. They really think we are stupid sheeple. Why does one associate illness and/or pain with being non intelligent? Any help would be greatly appreciated as I am also going through a horrible divorce after 28 years with a narcissistic/psychopath. The pain wears the body down even more. Hope everyone that is a real patient is okay and I hope this info clears things up because Walgreens and CVS won't tell you what is going on....

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Re: Theresa (# 14)

They already KNOW who the drug addicts are, their computer system cross-references nationwide. This is a WITCH hunt brought about by the Obama admin. I could care less about presidents, but obviously he felt a need to terrorize disabled people as well. I am hoping that this admin backs the DEA off. If not, this will go on, EVERYONE needs to write to TRUMP about this issue. He is a different president, so hopefully not willing to attack the disabled.

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Re: Tracy (# 4)

I have been onhydrocodone/acetaminophen 7.5/325 for more than 5 years for many spine/joint deterioration and bulging disks and spurs etc they have been effective and had Watson imprinted on. For this refill pharmacy said nationwide outage of them. None in our area. (All within a months time. My Dr changed me to 5/325 4x day opposed to 3 on the 7.5. I noticed these are produced bybActivis! Have heard Atticus is not as effective. I wonder if they se trying to do away with all hydrocone?

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Re: Diane (# 2)

Well, opiates for nerve pain is just as silly. If u really have nerve pain, u need a nerve blocker. Gabapentin may work for you.

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Why is it that the Norco 5/325 made originally by Watson Pharmaceuticals who merged with Actavis no longer makes the same drug Norco, which was a white oblong tablet with pink speckles? This was the drug that I had been taking for over 2 years. Then, the company stopped making this particular type of Norco. Why, I have no clue. Now, if you have a prescription for Norco 5/325 it is completely different and trust me, it does not work... Now being a patient and having taken this same drug for over 2 years, how can I be cut off from this medicine that worked so well for me? I have sciatica stenosis of my spine, a small herniated disc, plus arthritis and bursitis. This does not seem like the American way to me. It is something far sinister. Do you have any advice on how I can get my same drug that I have taken for years restored? I do not want to hear, it is the exact same ingredients. If so, then it does not metabolize in the blood stream the same way, or at least not mine. I have to take the name brand of another drug I take also. I have talked to managers in two different pharmacies about this issue. They both agreed, that there is a slight difference. Plus my doctor who has to prescribe my other brand name medicine informed me- clearly I need to take the brand name. Over a period of time, companies change insurances and I had to go back to the generic. Both times with a few years apart, I still had the same problem with the generic. My Dr. now writes medically necessary brand name, and I get the drug directly from the Co. which is Lilly Pharmaceuticals. This is not a game to play. This is the well being of a patient that is being misused by the big Pharmaceutical companies due to greed. Does a patient have any rights at all?

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Anyone with nerve damage would love to just wish it away. Some people know nothing of pain.

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You are exactly right!! Actavis is Not any good for pain!! I got my pm's filled @ Walgreens 2 weeks ago & my bottle said "mfg Actavis". The reason I even looked at the label on my bottle is bc I knew something was wrong with this prescription I got. Ever since I took the first dosage from this prescription, my pain has gone from a 3 to an 8 after taking this Actavis!! Plus Ive been itching severely on my lower legs & ringing in my ears!! This stuff does NOT work as well as the other generic brand Walgreens used to get!!

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Hi Sorry for what your going though Withdraws I get Ressless Leg, cry like a new born baby. You can't call around they won't tell you what they have. I sometimes take 1-1/2 instead one one pill. I hate refilling my Norco they look at you like your a junky. I want to say some people take it because they have pain and can't stay home.

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I found you smaller Pharmacies have smaller Co-Pays. And you don't have to wait hours like you do with CVS. They have their own polices, by law you can refill within three day of the date of your last refill. FYI

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does anyone know if the Mallinckrodt brand is closer to the Norco yellow pills as far as relieving pain? The white Actavis I am now getting from Walgrens is not working.

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Same here Always took the white watson for years worked great.Now I get the white norco 10/325 made by Malin croft and doesn't help me at all.I am in severe pain all the time.Also got some Yellow made by Qaulite st and they r just as the white ones.Doesn't help my pain at all.I have degenerative disk desease and from yal Gia and authritis.Something has to change to help people from having terrible pain.

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I just started my second month on these terrible Actavis 5/325s. They're useless. I had been taking those speckled Watsons for over a year with great success. My doctor dismissed me completely when I told her that these pills are not working. What are we supposed to do?

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Cant they just figure out who the dope heads are and make them take this drug? I have been injured for 3 years and the watson norco helped me, now i have to take this fake drug! Actavis is a FAKE drug. Its not Hydrocodone that is killing people it is their drug addiction killing them. Or something much much stronger like the drug that killed Michele Jackson and Prince. This is unfair.

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OMG I AM IN SO MUCH F***ING PAIN. I HAVE CHRONIC PAIN AND I CANT HANDLE IT ANYMORE. I WAS ON WATSON 5-325 THE MILDEST HYDROCODONE YOU CAN GET. ALONG WITH OTHER DRUGS AND MEDITATION, IT DIDN'T TAKE MY PAIN AWAY BUT MADE IT EASIER TO DEAL WITH. NOW ACTAVIS IS GENERIC FOR NORCO AND I MIGHT AS WELL BE TAKING ASPIRIN.

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There is so much misinformation on here it's just sad. Actavis bought out watson and now controls all their meds and patents. The only change to the yellow watson 853's is they took out the yellow die. That is it! All these people complaining about how they suck just are complaining due to placebo effect. They think it's not the same yet it still is. The Dea did not change anything in the pill to make it abuse proof. If u go online and actually use ur brains u can find the active and inactive ingredients lists for both the yellow 853's and white ones... And surprise surprise they have the exact same ingredients in each of them. Also mallinckrodt does not make yellow norco, theirs are the white m367 imprint ones. Also zohydro is extremely expensive and does have abuse proof ingredients making it hard to abuse and digest for some and yes if u were taking oxycodone 15mg all month and then switch back to 10mg norco it will not feel the same since oxy is 2x as strong as hydrocodone and therefore it was like taking 25-30mg hydro when u were taking the 15mg oxy so ur not going to "feel" them the same after if only taking 1-2 of them. And the point of pain meds is to help dull the pain not make u high everytime....

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Hi Stawin,

Your "NOT ALONE". I have been on 10Mg. hydro combo's last 15 years, and know how they work as well. I know where my tolerance starts and stops, and I can guarantee You we are getting placebo's. Maybe 2.5 Mg., and that is being VERY GENEROUS. I had to switch to 15 Mg. Oxycodones for awhile because of elevated blood enzymes coming back in my lab results due to the APAP. Last month everything was back to normal, so I decided to switch back to the Norco's {10/325; yellow Qualitest with the slanted "V" which always worked well 3 times a day}. When I got home from my pharmacy with the new Norco's, they were white WATSON 853's made by "ACTAVIS", the new owner of WATSON. Needless to say after 1/2 hour, I felt NOTHING WHATSOEVER. Confused, I {against my better judgement} took a 2nd one, a half hour later, still NOTHING. Called the Rx to see if they made a mistake? The Pharmacist {a fill in for the owner whom I have known since they opened 5 years ago} tried to convince me it was because I "drew down" from the Oxy's. I informed her that NO, I have taken the 10Mg. hydro's for 15-20 years, and know how they work in "MY SYSTEM". She insisted on an argument, so I hung up and called the Quality Control Manager at Actavis and asked her why her company {based in Dublin, Ireland}, was trying to sell us "CRAPPY WHITE CHALK", AND CALLING IT 10 Mg. Norco? I finally got her to admit that the DEA was forcing the manufacturers to change the formula so that street pill poppers couldn't abuse them. This is total B.S., and all of us legitimate pain management patients are paying the price. I even tried taking 3 {THREE} of these crappy generics, and got a very slight level of relief. After realizing that I could not risk my health taking 3 at a time, I took the rest back to my Doc, and went back on the Oxycodones {15Mg.} 3 times a day, and I function just fine, with excellent PAIN RELIEF. I have no plans to trust my pain care to these corporate CROOKS, and plan on staying on the Oxycodone. If You can't get Oxycodone, You might try the new "straight hydrocodone" called ZOHYDRO. There is currently no generic, and they are quite pricey, but I hear they work VERY GOOD. Same as Norco, without the extra fillers, binders, and most Importantly, NO APAP. So in summary, don't let them B.S. You, WE all can't be wrong. Good Luck and Good Health.

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"Most real patients are also addicts themselves"
No, not most, but some. Most people that take legal pain medication every month are taking it as prescribed and not abusing it. Most people have learned to live with some degree of pain, because we all know that there is no medictaion in the world that will completely remove all pain from a persons body. The only way to be completely pain free is to be in a hospital bed with a morphine drip tube running in you, and then even that's not always enough. As for pharmacy addicts, most people learn to control the urge to overdo the rx and get themselves thrown off the pain contract.

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Most real patients are also addicts themselves

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Stawin,

A few things have happend to the pain pills in the last 6 months. For one, the generic form of Norco 10-325 is made by the company Malinkrodt. Those were the yellow ones that worked so good you could ignore pain and clean the house if the urge came over you. They worked great and actually gave me energy. But, along comes the Feds to mess it all up by nagging these pill companies to lower the strength to try to cut down on illegal pills being slung on street corners, across America. Great idea right? Probably, some i**** Senator's daughter got high and crashed her car, so instead of blaming her, he blames the pusher, and the pill maker. This has happened many times over the years. Any time a medication gets popular, and actually works, someone will abuse it, and then it gets pulled or changed. Yea, I remember LSD when it was still legal. Then some actors daughter thought she could fly on it. She was mistaken. She died, and it became illegal not long after.

But, anyway, this compnay Malinkrodt changed their formula big time. The are now making the useless white Norco, which nobody wants. They claim, the only difference is the yellow dye they took out. Now, why would they do that do you think? They say it's because some people are allergic to food color?! hahaha what-a-crock. They took a lot more than dye out, and they know it, and they refuse to admit it. But, if you had the yellow, and are now trying to kill pain with the white ones, good luck. Your better off taking Tylenol.

I have been taking Norco10-325 for about 7 years now. Same dose every month. I am not addicted to them at all. I never run out too soon as I keep tabs on them. But, when they tried giving me the white turds, I took them, then got angry, when after eating 3 of them, I felt nothing! So, what this company is doing is completely ripping off the taxpayers in this country for billions dollars.

The other company that makes the yellow Norco and is still making them and keeping them yellow, is Qualitest. They make the yellow generic Norco that you used to get from Watson. Now, the only problem is finding them, because all the big chain stores are switching to the cheaper white Norco that don't do anything for pain. Until everyone gets mad enough, and in enough pain to rise up and push back, these white bunk pills will be what your given.

Do like many other people have done already, and simply tell the pharmacist you don't want the white ones. And, if they say they no longer have the yellow ones, then take your rx and leave. Do not allow them to sell you these white things or you will be in alot of pain for nothing.

It's a huge scam thats being pulled on the American public, and it's being done in the name, and with the blessing of the DEA. Somehow, this pill swap from one that works to one that does not is somehow supposed to help with the medication problem in America! What a joke. Just get on the phone and call around to your local pharmacies. Start with the smaller ones first as the big stores won't have the yellow Norco anymore. And, as Norco has now been upgraded to be a schedule 2 med, like morphine, you'd be better off getting MS Contin if you can no longer get the real Norco-good luck.

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Actavis is a horrible manufacturer. It has to be taken off the market because I know it is not selling like watson did and my pharmacist actually told me that the actavis junk. It's not flying off the shelves like watsons did and some customers have gone elsewhere however, if you ask Walgreens to order you the yellow ones which I believe you mean the ones made by Qualitest, they will order them for you. I just had my rx switched by my dr. and they ordered the yellow ones which the manufacturer is Qualitest and I didn't have any issues getting it filled. Everyone needs to let their pm doctors know what is going on at the pharmacies because a lot of these pm doctors just don't know what is going on out here with the hoops we have to jump through. So everyone please get the word out to your doctor and maybe we can get things to change.

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Why don't the pharmacies and Dr's see this? It's not fair to us people in chronic pain. That company should be sued due to people not getting relief, or making them sick. Something has to give. Bring back the yellow Norco's!!!

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