Asklemmy

42523 readers

1670 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
[email protected]: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

336

What are some items that really aren't worth paying the expensive version for? (lemmy.zip)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

426 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I saw this post and wanted to ask the opposite. What are some items that really aren't worth paying the expensive version for? Preferably more extreme or unexpected examples.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Do you object to the statement that generics are equivalent to brands, or that they aren't?

There are a lot of things that go into medications, as you pointed out, and allergens are the most severe - and not dismissable! - differrence. When a drug goes out of protection, the company is only required to release the mechanism of action; they aren't required to release the bindings you mentioned, or the coatings. They aren't required to release packaging info, which can affect the ease of which an arthritic patient - or a child - can access medications. Bindings and coatings affect release rates, which affects how the medication interacts with the body.

There is a substantial difference between formulations and packaging that affects some drugs. This isn't to say name brand is always better, but that there are differences.

I'd guess that you do not personally have a chronic illness for which you've been taking a medication for several years - am I right? Is your experience with generics all second-hand, through your patients?

In the US, the common experience of sufferers of chronic conditions is that pharmacies switch out generics every year as they jockey for higher profit margins. These people will confirm that there are definitely differences between formulations that affect percieved effectiveness. Should we write this common experience off as imagination?