alivenwell
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Is your preference generic or brand?
Do you have better control with generic or brand?
Do you have better control with generic or brand?
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I can relate. Mysoline is available in 250mg and 50mg. Up until April this year, both were available in brand name. The 50mg is the only one left in brand name only right now. If I insist on brand name only I'm only covered for two of the 50mg tablets in one day, but I can get full coverage on four of the 250mg pills (brand or generic!).Screwy thing about my insurance which is decent overall. They will cover my 200 mg Phenytek, but my 300 mg phenytek is considered 'non-formulary' and they only pay a small fraction on that.
Same medication, just different pill size. Just plain stupid!
OOOh. That sounds so familiar. My kid is 21 and really hates pills, too. He was on Ritalin as a little kid which he said made him feel awful and tasted really horrible. We had to give him liquid cold medicine or chew able medicine for years.I have a 23 year old that still gags on pills. We tried all kinds of things to teach her to swallow them, but nothing works for her. Hard to get past that mind barrier sometimes.
Me, I can pop 6-7 at a time (including vitamins and iron).
They are looking into passing laws that prevent exactly what is happening to you. At least in PA, there is one House Bill that still needs to get through the Senate. It is specifically supposed to provide people with epilepsy with information when a switch is made between brand and a generic, a generic and a different company for the generic, and generic back to brand.A couple months ago our insurance co decided the would pay for nothing brand name if a generic were available. My prescriptions (Topamax and Trileptal) both specified the brand names but the pharmacy, of course (??) issued the generic Trileptal which I refused and paid for the brand name. My neuro (at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis) wrote to the insurance appealed their ruling. The insurance co refused so she appealed again and won!! It took two months but now I get the brand name drugs.
Ohio is working on a similar law. If I understand it correctly, it would prevent a pharmacist from substituting generics for brand names. It would also prevent or require notification when being changed from one generic to another.
That second part can be as bad as the first. Some patients are able to find suitable, effective doses of a generic, but then have trouble when unexpectedly moved to another generic that they may absorb differently.