to want the form of medication I want not what is cheaper for NHS?

[Sunshine78]

Have paosted in more detail on mental health but just for perhaps a more general reation!

Have been on a capsule form of AD for 9 yeats and generally been stable. A month a go GP changed me to the tablet for saying was exactly the same. To cut a long story short mental health took an almighty dive and DH asked GP if I could have the capsules back as had always been fine on these. After GP trying to ocnvince us that was all in our heads agreed to put me back to capsules (which have taken for a week and feel fine again)

GP tried again today to get me to take the tablets over capsules as they will sae the NHS £400+ a prescription.

Now I feel guilty (even though I pay NI and tax and I'm sure me being long term sick would cost more!)

Has anyone else had an adverse reaction from taking a medication that GP said is the same as one already been on?

Hi, i saw your post on mental health, my SIL has had her medication changed (same meds, different company that produces it), she hasn't seen any change but noticed the lest of side effects were different with the new packet . I think you will find that it is the same drug your GP has given you but made by another company (which is cheaper for the NHS to buy from). Have you got the packaging from both the meds so you can see if there are any different ingredients? It could be an added ingredient that is causing the side effects.

A differnt form of the same medication should not change its function. For example Liquid paracetamol has the same effect as tablet form. Is it a psychosomatic reaction do you think or maybe an additive to the tablet that is causing it?

I really have no idea I thought I would throw my 2cents in.

I take the cheap version of tablets all the time and never had a reaction before.

i had this a while back with dd's epilepsy meds. the dr wanted to put her on the generic ones, even though I really argued with him, I got a secon op from dd's pead and we tried it, she was fine.

if you genuinely feel one form is far less effective than the other, as you do, then YANBU. as 2shoes says, it's a known problem with epilepsy meds, so not impossible it could occur with other meds.

Which ADs are you on ? It's unusual that after a week of the ones you like, you feel fine again as a lot of ADs take longer than that to reach therapeutic levels. If the active ingredients are exactly the same, I think you need to look at other reasons for the decline in your mental health. Did you and your DH have exactly the same new symptoms at the same time ? And as for the £400 prescription - can you double check with your pharmacist about the exacts costs as that does seem fairly excessive for ADs ?

or ask if there is another form also in a capsule (I wonder if it's the form rather than the content)?

I find this sort of thing quite interesting. I have always been convinced that the own brand ibuprofen I buy doesn't last as long as the nurofen I take (same dosage, same ingredients). There was a programme on TV where they tried out ibuprofen and paracetamol (own brand) versus branded painkillers in a non scientific trial but without telling the people what painkillers they were taking and the results showed the same as I'd experienced (but it wasn't scientific ).

There was an outcry round here as a few people were given generic asthma inhalers and all experienced a worsening in their symptoms and had to be swapped back to the proper stuff. But I guess it's impossible to know what is psychosomatic and what isn't!

anti depressants take 4-6 weeks to reach a therapeutic level, although you may feel different (not neccessarily better) before that.

I'm sorry but as a mental health nurse of 11 years i'm wondering whether this may be psychosomatic.

If your doctor can save the NHS over £400 a prescription then he totally should - that a huge amount assuming its a regular prescription.

If the ingredients are identical then you should have to take the cheaper option unless you want to pay privately.

agree about it only being a week but was taking supposedly the same AD before this and had only switched for 4 weeks so original would still be in system.

Have never had this before with other meds - always but the cheapest from the chemsist etc and am asthamtic and had various different inhalers and other than a different taste not noticed it not doing its job!

When was given tablets didn't give it a second thought just took them was only when was v bad last week with depression that DH mentioned the he thought I had been going down hill for a few weeks and how long had I been taking the tablets for. When he spoke to my boss (not having mentioned change in medication) he said he had noticed a gradual decline in me over the last few weeks.

Dont know what else could have caused it to come on as life although not great been stable for a long time now!

What ad are you on that it saves the NHS £400 per presciption?

It sounds like a placebo effect to me (also take ADs!) - funny enough the capsules make me barf and I prefer the tablets.

I can see both sides here. As an epileptic I know there are huge concerns about this sort of thing because of the differences between generic subscriptions and branded drugs. Is there the same amount of active ingredient in these drugs, or an additional non-active one which could be disagreeing with you? I think it is wrong to instantly assume that generic replacements are identical, because they are not. Even if the ingredients are the same, the amounts will probably vary from brand to brand. So I disagree with the people who have flat out said that 'there's no difference'.

On the other hand, a week is an exceptionally short amount of time to be taking these drugs before writing them off. As minxofmancunia said, it takes 4-6 weeks to properly get into your system, so it could be that you were expecting something to go wrong rather than that actually being the case.

Yes, £400 a prescription is a lot, but if it's the difference between your condition being managed or not, it's £400 well spent. But you do need to make sure that this is the case for you, and it's not just a knee-jerk placebo style reaction to being given 'cheaper' drugs. A tricky one, certainly.

x-posted. If you were taking them for a month I guess the deterioration in your condition is plausible enough, though your recovery does seem a little swift. By that time there would be very little left of the original drug in your system.

Tottwriter took the tablets for 4 weeks before got ill been back on original ones a week.

Not a case of these being generic v branded as both venlafaxine only diff should be one is a tablet and one a capsule.

Just read ingredients and apart from the venlafaxine no other ingrediants are the same. They are both slow release and am wandering if it is just that my body breaks down the capsule differently to the tablet hence the difference in my mental health.

Venlafaxine is NO WAY saving the NHS £400 per prescription!! Your GP is mistaken - maybe per year.

Check about the slow release thing though. Most (IIRC) venlafaxine tablets are twice a day and capsules once a day. Maybe (you probably were fine but just thought I'd mention it) you were taking too low a dose?

Don?t know anything about ADs, I?m afraid, but can I just point out that even if the GP is right about the difference in cost, that £400 is going to seem a pretty small amount if not having the right medication ultimately means an extended hospital stay for the OP.

Perhaps you should try pointing this out to him/her, sunshine? I hope you manage to get this sorted out.

YABU in your post title to say the medication you wantas opposed to a cheaper one

however YANBU in wanting to take a form of medication that works for you.

I would ask the GP to research what difference the other ingredients have, it could cause difference in the rate of release or maybe you are allergic to one of the "new" ingredients?

Usually the pharmacist asks if you would prefer a cheaper brand.

They can do this when the patent has run out on the original brand and after that anyone can make the same product.

The ingredients are the same but because the patent has run out they can call it whatever they like and charge less for it.