I have lived in NJ all my life until recently. I moved to the San Francisco East Bay. 6 years ago in New Jersey, I got in a bad accident and ended up needing to go to pain management and physical therapy and everything. They started me on a medication call ultracet which didnt work so I worked my way through other prescriotions and nothing worked until I got to the medication I am on now for Roxycodone 30 mg.. Recently I moved to San Francisco East Bay, and I found a Dr. Out here and got my medication switched over and everything. My question is, is there a way to find out what manufacturer a pharmacy uses for my prescription. I have always taken the Actavis brand of the Oxy HCl, the A 215 Iimprinted ones. When I got to SF Bay Area, I clearly had to get a new pharmacy and my new pharmacy is giving me the Mallinckrodt brand, the M 30 imprinted ones. They are a little bit bigger and therefor harder to swallow for me. The bigger the harder it is to swallow the pill. I have had to crush pills up and swallow them that way etc. Is there a way to find out what brand a pharmacy uses of a medication? Any advice would help.
Thanks
Is there a way to find out what manufacturer of a pill a pharmacy uses?
Question posted by TheRacer10 on 4 Oct 2013
Last updated on 29 October 2020 by ggeolas
5 Answers
Just ask your pharmacist if he won't help get another pharmacy you are so right all medicines are not created equally for example I am on buprenorphine and by reading the threads on this site people were reporting really positive results from one specific brand I also found out that others were having the same trouble that I was experiencing with certain manufactures I must have called 15 different pharmacies before I found one that stocked the particular brand people were recommending on this site and behold I had been on this drug around 7 months and after starting the new brand I finally got pain relief which I had never really received from the other manufactures medication and BTW every pharmacy I called had no problem telling me what manufacturer of this drug that they carried since then I am now very careful to see who manufactures a new prescription and WHERE it is manufactured while researching different manufactures I have found ...
many manfactured outside the US and many people have been reporting problems with certain manfactured causing everything from infection in their mouth to just plain not working it is too bad that for the price we pay for these medications are so high and ALL pharmacies buy the cheapest brand from their wholesaler good luck and be pro active when you get your medications in these unpresidented times
You can ask the pharmacist and sometimes they will tell you, especially if you do business with that pharmacy and they have seen you around. At other times, they look at you with suspicion and make you feel like a drug addict.
But what i have recently begun to tell them is that my physician has told me that all drugs are not created equal and that different brands of the same drugs will have a different effect on you. In the case of a drug prescribed for pain, this means some brands will have a therapeutic effect and some won't. With the ones that don't, you will get no pain relief and will feel like you wasted your money. So good luck with all that because it's tough to get answers out there.
I have an allergy to an inactive ingredient, so I can only have certain manufacturers. So sometimes if there is only one manufacturer of a medication I can have, and several others out there, my doctor will write the prescription "Xxxxx manufacturer only". Now my 90-day refill service doesn't know this is because of an allergy - they just know they have to use this particular manufacturer because the doctor said so. I get billed on whether that is the brand name manufacturer or generic - nothing extra. Might be worth a try. A pharmacy tries to obtain the cheapest manufacturers. However, they can order a specific amount from a specific manufacturer if needed. It won't hurt to ask them "If my doctor ordered a specific manufacturer could you get it and how much would it cost on my prescription plan?" Then you just need to convince your doctor to write it this way (I find that's the easy part and so have a few other people I've suggested this to - who were in the same type situation as you). Hope this helps. EJ23
You can try calling them. Like KM says, they may be reluctant over the phone because oxycodone 30's are a high theft item. You can request that your pharmacy stock a certain manufacturer but they may not always be able to. It is usually whatever their supplier gets that they have in stock. I have been on these for years and have had several different brands. Most of them work about the same. I recently had a new manufacturer that I never had before, Caraco, which I thought worked better than any other generic. I usually end up getting Qualitest or Actavis. The only ones I really do not like are the Ethex brand. They smell like poison and they give me horrific headaches when I take them! I didnt think that there was any size difference on the diameter of these pills. I know Actavis and Qualitests are the exact same size. I thought Mallinkrodt was too. I agree with Kaismama on the swallowing. I never could get why people think that they cannot swallow pills.
If you can swallow a big mouthful of food ( go ahead, take a normal bite of food then spit it out and look at the size-I guarantee it is bigger than a pill!!) then you can swallow a pill. It is just mind over matter. I can take a handful of meds/vitamins and swallow them. It is no larger than food. What trips most people up is the not chewing part. There are a few techniques to make swallowing easier. Some people find that taking a small sip of water to wet the mouth good, followed by the pill and roll it around just enough to get it wet all over then swallow. Some find the best way is to place the pill way back on the back of the tongue then take a drink and swallow quickly. Some people find it helpful to put the pill on the back of the tongue, take a sip of water then tip the head back so gravity helps you swallow (this one works best for me). You can swallow a pill if you dont overthink it. It is no different than swallowing food.
You have to go in and ask them. It won't necessarily stay the same tho. Calling them when a narcotic is involved might not get you anywhere, because they don't want it out there that they have narcotics in stock. The distributor uses whichever company gives them the best price. Better to learn how to swallow pills. If you can swallow food you can swallow a pill.
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pain, pharmacy, pain management, accident
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