jody1971 Posted July 16, 2005 Share Posted July 16, 2005 For those of you on Lithium and especially the generic form of lithium please watch your doctor on how they prescribe it to you and your pharmacy on how they deliver it to you. My insurance company makes me do the mail order pharmacy deal. I have been taking 300mg capsules manufactured by Roxane for the past 3 months. The first month my doc had me on Lithobid because of the stomach "issues" generic Li causes. I ordered my 90 day supply a few weeks ago through the mail order deal and received tabs vs the normal capsules I usually take. I took my first dose of tabs last night when I got home from work around 2am. At 9am this morning I was up vomiting, dry heaving, shaking and crying uncontrollably. I called my doctor and he told me there shouldn't be any difference in caps vs tabs. I then called my regular pharmacist at my local Walgreens and talked to him and he said that NO - with Li you should NEVER change manufacturers or types. I called my doc back and told him what the pharmacist said and he agreed to phone me in my usual Li 300mg capsule meds. Definitely a lesson learned on this. Don't fix what's not broken! What really is the clincher is that I have to do an online order of my meds and the doc prescribed my Li 300mg capsules but the "online pharmacy" was OUT of the caps and substituted the tabs in place of them. I called their customer service and chewed them out and told them what happened to me this morning. She then told me they are STILL out of them and that I would have to call my doc to have him phone in a script to my local pharmacy. I asked her if it's possible to just get my Li script filled all the time at my local pharmacy and she said that I can. Moral of the story is that pharmacists are sometimes just as knowledgeable as the docs. Ask questions. I don't wish what happened to me this morning on my worst enemy! The sad thing is that it happened again tonight at work to where I had to come home. I hope the tabs are out of my system now. Crossing fingers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrungOutOnLife Posted July 16, 2005 Share Posted July 16, 2005 Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sun_zoom_spark Posted July 16, 2005 Share Posted July 16, 2005 The only experience I have had was switching from generic lithium carbonate tabs to named brand Lithobid. No difference in serum levels @ the same dose. Sorry you had to go through this. Only switch I made that seemed to cause a marked difference was generic clonazepam to named brand Klonopin. Klonopin was much more 'reliable' than the hit or miss clonazepam. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Guest Posted July 17, 2005 Share Posted July 17, 2005 Sorry to break in here, but I have a question about the whole lithium stomach upset thing. Are you saying there is a difference between generic and brand lithium in terms of stomach upset? Any information on this would be great. As far as the generic thing, I had a big fight with walgreens over this issue. But it was about the difference between two generics!! I was starting out on Wellbutrin SR with the 100mg tablets. Started with one per day and then to two per day, then I needed to switch to the 150mg tablets to continue upping my dosage. When I went to pick up the 150mg tablets they were a different generic. They even smelled different than my previous generic! I started on the 150mg and all of the start up side effects I had been slogging my way through came back with a vengeance. Walgreens claimed it was because I was upping the dosage. I didn't think so. As an experiment, I started taking three of the 100mg and wouldn't you know it, no side effects with the increased dosage of the original generic. Walgreens still refused to acknowledge that I was reacting differently to the two meds, so I had to switch pharmacies to one that carried the 150mg tablets in the generic I tolerated. Yeah, I'm a med sensitive freak. But it happened. The fillers in the two generics must have been different enough to give me problems Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sun_zoom_spark Posted July 17, 2005 Share Posted July 17, 2005 The fillers in the two generics must have been different enough to give me problems Or the dose printed on the bottle was not the accurate dose. Many different companies make generic drugs and no two companies make the exact same equivalency. Read Jerod's link on name brand vs. generic. It is very informing and helpful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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