Anybody thrilled about the new generic for lamictal? Lamogrine is different to me, and not sure if anyone else feels the same. I am switching back, because I feel a little more irritated and in coherrant. Generics are theoritcally supposed to be the same ingredients, but do they always treat the same?
It's not new, this generic has been out for quite a long time. The thing yu have to rememberwith generics is that there is a 20% margin of less medication availability on either side...so they may not work the same for all.
I was switched over to the generic of Lamictal as soon as it came out a few months ago.
I didn't watch closely enough to see if there was a difference.
It also didn't help that other medications were being tinkered with at the time...so it's hard to say what caused a difference for me...or what it could be attributed to.
But I have heard that generics do differ from name brands.
I take 2 generics (Fluoxetine/Prozac and Fexofenadine/Allegra) and don't notice any difference between them.
I used to take Prozac in 1991, but it didn't work for me. I'm now taking Fluoxetine and it is. Don't ask me why.
I also used to take Zyrtec 2 years ago but then was switched to Fexofenadine after my insurance no longer covered the cost of Zyrtec. I find that Fexofenadine works just as well as Zyrtec.
2 years ago I was switched from Risperdal to Risperidone. Once this change was made, I noticed an increase in my symptoms. I don't know if this was psychosematic or not, but it seemed to me that my voices, delusions and paranoia became worse ever since I started taking Risperidone.
This just goes to show that each of us is different in terms of how we react to brand name meds vs. generics.
As far as the composition between the two are concerned, the ingredients are the same. How they differ has to do with appearance, the amount of dye and formulation a particular med has as well as its' release time.
__________________
Atypical Bipolar I Disorder with Rapid Cycling
Meds:
Depakote 1500mg
Prozac 40mg
Risperdal 1mg titrating to 6mg/day
Klonopin .5mg (2x/day)
Trazodone 100mg or 200mg PRN
Last edited by dreams in neon; 04-15-2009 at 01:38 AM.
I am 100% with you. I hadn't had any real symptoms for THREE YEARS until i switched to the generic form of lamictal. now i'm rapid cycling even though i upped my dosage of the generic. am switching back. can't believe that this could happen with something that is supposed to be the "same." pretty scary. i'm glad it's not just in my head. they really don't work as well for some people!
Generics are never exactly the same, there is up to a 20% FDA allowed variation of the active ingredient allowed in generic medications, this is why sometimes they do not act the same and also why they're cheaper and how the patents get released.. It also depends on the "brand" of generic that you get, some brands work better than others. Alot of folks tend to be under the assumption that just because it's a generic it's made by the same company but that's not always the case. You might ask your pharmacist what brand people have complained about and see if there is a different brand he can order. Pharmacists can be a wealth of information when it comes to your meds, almost more so than your doc, especially if you've had the same one for a long time. I've been with my pharmacist for 10 years, and he tends to pay more attention to my 13 meds then all my docs do.
Soon I will be on 14 meds (in a previous post I said 13, but that was a typo) due to my bipolar and various other medical conditions. Two of the new meds I will take are generics, so it will be interesting to see how they compare to their brand name counterparts. So far, I'm doing very well on Fluoxetine (Prozac) as well as Fexofenadine (Allegra). The best thing a person can do is to try a generic to see how effective it is. If you aren't experiencing any relief, it may be time to switch to a name brand med.
__________________
Atypical Bipolar I Disorder with Rapid Cycling
Meds:
Depakote 1500mg
Prozac 40mg
Risperdal 1mg titrating to 6mg/day
Klonopin .5mg (2x/day)
Trazodone 100mg or 200mg PRN
Switch to generics. 
