In drugstores you can opt to buy either branded medicine (e.g. Advil) or generic (e.g. ibuprofen). Generic meds are cheaper than branded meds. But the latter seems to have the market's trust in terms of safety of use. Technically, both have the same chemical formulation and thus, arguabl,y the same effect on the body. But there has been debates on which to take. What's your preference and why?
I prefer generic medicines if and only if the medicine I'm about to buy has its generic equivalent. However, if the medicine in question doesn't have its generic equivalent (this is mostly the case for my parents' respective prescription meds), then I'd opt to buy a specific brand. Most newly released or redesigned meds have no generic version, so you're left little choice but the buy them expensive.
For prescription medication, generic is usually just as good as the brand name, for a better price. However, there are important exceptions to this, so take any blanket statements like "generic is always best" with a grain of salt. For example, there is the thyroid hormone replacement drug Synthroid versus its generic, levothyroxine. Since it is a hormone it is very important that the content of active ingredient within the pill is consistent. The generic forms of levothyroxine are well known to have more of a variability in active ingredient content, up to 15%. Synthroid is much more consistent in comparison. So, for many patients it is extremely important to get the brand name Synthroid and accept no substitutes. Some people do fine on the generic, however.
Both brand name drugs and generic drugs have to be tested and for them to be approved to be sold, they must meet the same standards. Much as there might be slight differences that could make one drug appear to be better than the other, fact is, both work the same way. The difference could be noticed in how fast you get relief from pain or get cured of a disease. But thing is, at the end of it, they have the same effect — kill pain, or cure a disease. I prefer to buy generic drugs because they are cheaper.
I prefer branded medicines because I think they are slightly more effective. Granted, I do realize that I may just imagining it, but seeing as I don't really drink medicine all that often anyway, I just go for the more trusted brands. I've gotten to use generic medicines and I don't know if my ailment was just more severe at the time but I find that it's not as effective as the branded ones for some reason.
In most case the brand name drug has a generic version and that version tends to be a whole lot cheaper. I always go for the generic version of medicines when there is one, as it makes no sense I spend more money than I need to, health care is already expensive. Sometimes I wonder why doctors don't just prescribe the generic version in the first place.
We used to go to buy the branded, because we don't much about the generics, only lately that we knew about it. Also the doctors often recommend those branded. When they prescribe a medicine, they prescribe the branded, so generally generic medicine would by default be obscured.
I buy generic brand OTC meds when they match the ingredients to the name brand one. My husband swears to me that Naproxen Sodium does not work the same as Aleve though, which has the same active ingredient. I'm not sure about meds, you never know the quality of the work from the person behind the scenes or the quality of their ingredients. Maybe that's why some generic brands that are seemingly the same as the name brands don't work as well... or maybe it's just a placebo effect, it's all in the person's mind. I know for my prescription medications everything is usually the same when I get the generic version of big name medicines. I believe these medicines are supervised a little closer than OTC meds, thus making them work better.
I prefer generics because they are much cheaper. Honestly, generic brands are the same when it comes to its effects on me. However, when it comes to antibiotics and other crucial medicines, I go for the branded ones. I don't know. I guess I still have that "branded is better" mentality when it comes to medicines.
I usually ask my doctor for the honest truth about whether I'll be missing anything by not getting the branded version. There are a lot of very old medications that no longer need to be branded, but if it's something recent, I'll just bite the bullet and get the branded version. I'm trying to get better and one way or another, I'm going to be spending money, either on the medicine or another visit to the doctor because the generic didn't work well enough.
For OTC I usually buy generic. If they have the same ingredients then it should be just as good and much cheaper. For prescriptions it depends on what my doctor says. Most of the time I buy generic but sometimes the doctor will specify no substitutions in which case I buy the branded ones.
