Up-Date on Mylan and Me

[Freddie]

I raised a red flag with my Doc and the brand name Mylan. It is not made in Canada and the Mylan office in Toronto (?) didn't know where they came from, although it does meet Health Canada's standards, hummm. Doctor has agreed to send me a new prescription for the generic brand Taro.

Now, since starting on the Mylan brand of warfarin, it has seemed that after 2 hours of taking my dosage I feel like someone has hit me with a 2x4. I can't keep my eyes open (and it's only around 7:00pm) and I have felt very agitated, heck my finger nails are gone and I mean gone as in ripped off and I can't get to sleep when it's bed time. What's changed.......taking the Mylan brand.

As far as my INR, I think this stuff has a little more punch. Last week (April 8th) my monitor reading was 2.8 (range 2.5 - 3.5) with 41mg/wk. I continued with my weekly dosage and tonight my monitor read 3.4. Been on this Mylan-Warfarin for 6 days.

Now either I finish this 3 month prescription and continue to feel agitated and adjust to 40mg/wk or 38mg/wk or simply get the new prescription filled and see where that takes me.

ahhh, decisions, decisions

What's your thoughts?

 

[Ross]

Just get the new prescription so your mind isn't wondering.

 

[Bina]

Like I said before, if it is going to cause you stress.....just switch it. No big deal.

 

[Luana]

Freddie,
I had a problem once with a generic that I had been taking for quite a while. I got a refill that was from a different manufacturer and it gave me some unpleasant side effects. I mentioned it to the pharmacist and she gladly exchanged what I had with the generic I used to get before. Sometimes odd things can occur with a generic from one manufacturer to another.

 

[Freddie]

Thanks Luana for sharing your experience.
Apparently my former generic brand has been shut down due to a "spring clean-up time" and it's no where to be found.
Good news is I have received my new prescription for Taro-Warfarin and so far no side effects.

 

[Ross]

Oh so your an Israeli chick now huh. Is your real name Ziva David?

 

[tobagotwo]

Glad you've found something you're more comfortable with. Usually, if there's an issue with a generic, it's with the dyes, binders, or rate of absorption. On rare occasions, it's something seemingly harmless that gets into the mix. Often, they are things that only affect a small portion of the users, so they aren't ever really brought to light.

As an example of how tricky making these compunds can be, a product being manufactured by the brand name that developed it was causing problems for some patients. All the manufacturing was checked with great concern and in exacting detail: all the ingredients, all the processes, the line workers, the labs techs, the testing protocals, the factory environments, seemingly everything that could possibly touch the product. This was followed by an audit of all of the suppliers, to try to determine if anything could have changesd that might not have been picked up. In the end, it was found that the manufacturer of rubber stoppers that were used on vials during the processing had very slightly changed their formulation. All normal quality testing they used showed that all the new stoppers were chemically equivalent to the old ones. In fact, the process they were being used for was so unusual, that it had managed to cause the release of a tiny amount of chemical vapor from the stoppers, and an almost undetectable amount of that just happened to bind to a tiny amount of one of the chemicals in the product during that phase of manufacturing. It gets that ticklish, and that difficult. Had it been a generic manufacturer, they'd never have investigated that far. They would have continued selling the product, possibly with an FDA warning, or they'd have simply stopped manufacturing that particular product.

A generic makes money because the manufacturing process is manageable, the ingredients are available, and there is no hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars cost for development and efficacy testing. By their nature, generic manufacturers aren't the highly sophisticated facilities of the original manufacturers, They may even outsource their labwork. They need only show that they deliver an equivalent amount of the active ingredient as the original. In most cases, this leads to an inexpensive product with great physical and financial benefits to a larger patient population. However, in some cases, manufacturing processing quality suffers from cost-cutting measures, lack of oversight, variability between batches, inadequate testing and problem-diagnostic facilities and personnel, variable concentrations of active ingredients in the raw materials source, or other elements, such as standard dyes or binders that may cause unexpected difficulties for a percentage of those who take them.

Fortunatlely, a trend that is beginning is for original manufacturers to now produce thier own products as generics, and sell them in competition with their own brand name product. This is likely to make them hard to beat for quality.

What you did was the right thing. You went with it, but kept an eye on its effects on you, to see if it was the right thing for your body. Ususally, it will be smooth sailing. In your case, you decided it wasn't, and are now with a different generic, which you've found works just fine.

Best wishes,

 

[Bina]

Oh so your an Israeli chick now huh. Is your real name Ziva David?

Ross.....you are just too funny.
Freddie, I'm glad you made the switch.

 

[Cris N]

Fortunatlely, a trend that is beginning is for original manufacturers to now produce thier own products as generics, and sell them in competition with their own brand name product. This is likely to make them hard to beat for quality.

Best wishes,

I wonder why it has taken so long for this to occur. This has been going on in the food industry and health & beauty products for very long time.