Just Because It’s Over the Counter Doesn’t Mean It’s Totally Safe

Many people don’t give a second thought to what is contained in over the counter drugs. Otherwise known as OTC, these drugs are available without a doctor prescription but the fact remains that they are indeed drugs. Next time you go to purchase pain medication or any over the counter drug to treat a minor ailment, make sure you are reading the label for health warnings. This advice applies not only to pregnant women, but to everyone. Here are just some of th symptoms you could be facing from a medication you may not have thought twice about consuming.

1.) nausea, vomiting- This is a warning found on many of the most popular over the counter medications. The fact is that many components of these drugs could interact unfavorably with something you’re already taking. The producers of the pharmaceutical can’t gear the drug not to interact with everything so you really are taking a risk if you are not comparing medications you take for possible clashes.

2.) abdominal pain- Don’t be surprised if you get quite A stomach ache even if it follows taking a supposedly safe OTC drug. Ab pain is one of the more common negative side effects to medications and can be quite painful, unless use of the drug is immediately discontinued.

3.) liver toxicity- A known side effect of acetaminophen is the potential to turn your liver toxic. Acetaminophen is found in many of the most common cold and flu medications. The potential for your liver to get polluted is among the main reasons why you should never take too much cold and flu medication.

If you are going to take a drug, even an over the counter drug, you absolutely have to read the label and make sure it’s safe for you to take. After all, there is no sense causing a completely new problem in your body while you’re trying to get rid of your current illness.

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Why Pharmacies Change Drug Companies

How many times has this happened to you? You go to your pharmacy to pick up a medication that you take monthly and you’ve been taking monthly for years. You bring it home and open up the bottle and the one thing you know for sure is that it does not look anything like the pills you’ve been taking. You bring it back to the pharmacy and you are told that it is a different company that is supplying the drug now and you are no longer getting the medication that you have been taking, and has been working for years. So you ask yourself, “why are they doing this?”

Well, this is a rather easy question to answer when it comes down to it. The fact is that most of the prescription drugs you buy will probably change in your life time and they do so because they are either no longer being made by the company or the pharmacy found them at a cheaper price.

This works as a chain of events. For instance, a drug company sends out a blood pressure medication and charges a pharmacy 100 dollars a pill. The pharmacy then turns around and sells it to you and your insurance company at 200 dollars a pill. But what happens is that the drug company next time decides they want to start selling it at 150 dollars a pill. So your pharmacy looks around and finds another drug company that is actually dropping the price on the pill to 75 dollars a pill. The pharmacy decides to go with the other company and therefore you and your insurance company save money. This is a big business and so pharmacies have to look out for your best interest and their own. Remember that the next time you pick up your medication.

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Why Pharmacies Changing Drug Companies is a Good Thing

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When you pick up your medication and you wonder exactly why your pharmacy is using a different company it might trigger a little anger from you. After all, the medicine you were taking was working so why would there be any need to change it? Isn’t this causing you more grief than you need or deserve? Well the fact is that while it might not be a friendly way to do it the drug companies affect the amount you pay and here’s exactly how it works.

If you are taking a drug called Cholest and this drug is lowering your cholesterol. It’s a generic so you are saving money and your insurance is only making you pay 5 dollars because of it. The pill is being sold from the company to the pharmacy at a rate of .10 cents a pill. The pharmacy in turn sells that pill at .30 cents a pill to you. That makes the cost of a thirty day supply (assuming it’s one pill a day) at 9 dollars. So your insurance picks up 4 dollars and leaves you with the five. It’s a pretty simple arrangement. But, what happens when the drug company raises the price.

Let’s say, just to make this easy, that the drug company raises the price of the pill to 1 dollar a pill. That would mean that your pharmacy is going to raise that up to 3 dollars a pill for the final sale price. This will make the cost of your medication 90 dollars. It’s unlikely your insurance will only make you pay 5 dollars. The chances are that now they will make you pay 30 dollars for your medication because they are unhappy with the price. This is why you end up paying what you do for your medication. It’s just simple math.

However, consider alternatives like asking your doctor if they generic brand will do the same thing. See if they medication is working, maybe you can adjust the dosage from two pills a day to one which would make your medication last longer than it normally would. Another more involved alternative would be to shop around to other insurance companies.

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The Benefits of Generic Drugs

There are some stigmas in the world of pharmacy drugs and one of them is the idea of brand name drugs versus the generic drugs. This is a debate that has raged on for quite some time for those who take regular medication. The question is, as it is always, are generic drugs the same for you as the brand name drugs? The reason for the issue altogether has to do with the way people perceive the word “generic.” The idea is that generic has come to mean something that is not as good or good for you as its brand name counterpart.

If you have ever been to the supermarket, you know that generic substitutes are available for almost every single item you can think of. Perhaps you have even tried those items because of their cheaper price. You will have learned something that applies to medications, there is no difference. When a drug goes the route of becoming a generic what simply happens is other companies are given the right to make that drug legally. However there are strict guidelines that must be in place if they are going to be able to sell the generic. The main guideline is that all generic drugs must have the same active ingredient that the brand name drug has. There can be absolutely no exception to this. This will ensure the integrity of this drug so that you aren’t harmed by a cheap imitation that hurts you.

It’s not always easy to trust something that is a generic because there is a predisposition to assume that generic means less effective or not as good, but if you check out the word in the dictionary you will learn very quickly that there is nothing about generic that is bad. All it does is help, especially in your wallet.

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Why Generics Cost Less

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Every time you go into the pharmacy you are asked to switch over to generic drugs. There is a technician or a pharmacist letting you know that these drugs are expensive and if you just go with the generic brand that you will save yourself a lot of money in the long run, but every time you evade them and tell them no and you do it for two reasons:

1. You have been taking the same name brand drug for years and it’s been working so you wonder why you would ever change now?

2. And if it’s so much cheaper than the name brand, can it really be as good?

The second thing is what gives most customers like yourself pause, but the answer is yes. It absolutely is just as good. The reason that a drug is so much cheaper as a generic is easy. The price of a name brand drug is so high because there is so much that goes into developing that drug. There is the cost of obtaining the patent as well as paying the lab tech and scientists and doctors the money it takes for them to develop it. There are the lawyers and the testing that they must do to prove the drug to be safe. There is tens of millions of dollars spent on a single drug, so when they release it into the market there will be a lot of mark up to reimburse.

But when it goes generic, the recipe is made available and the people who make the drug don’t have to pay for all the research and development. They only have to pay the cost of having it made. There is far less overhead and it is a far easier price. This is why it costs so much less for generics.

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Obtain Information About Drugs from Your Insurance Company

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Let’s face it, you are always going to try to save money where you can, but when it comes to your prescription drugs, it feels like saving money is a hopeless cause. There is nothing about the drugs you take that seems cheap to you and everywhere you go you realize that the price of medication is just going up. So how do you save money on drugs when there doesn’t seem to be a reasonable way to? There are some simple things you can do to save you more money on your prescription drugs.

The first thing you can do is call your insurance company and ask for a list of their preferred generics and a list of their covered medications. Every so often, insurance companies make a new list of drugs they will cover and drugs they won’t cover, ask if they provide that when you ask for your free insurance quote.  They look and see what the going cost is for medication and what new generics are available. They might like the cost of one generic blood pressure pill over another. This might be something that they put in their preferred generics category. Either way, obtaining a list of this could help you a lot in determining how to save money. Perhaps you have been taking an anti-depressant that is now available in the form of another medication that is on their preferred brands category. You can get the doctor to change it free of charge and then take it to your pharmacy and have them fill it.

It’s always better when you can to go with generics but even if you can’t there are still bargains with brand name alternatives. Just obtaining that list can be helpful in knowing which drugs to avoid so that there is no hassle from the pharmacy. Keeping in touch with the insurance company is the best way to get your drugs for cheaper.

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The Rise of Teva

The idea when it comes to pharmaceutical drugs is that the best and biggest drug companies are in the United States or in Europe. It feeds into this idea that the most civilized or the most popular of today’s countries are the ones who are at the forefront of making the drugs that make us better, but that wouldn’t be the case at all. As a matter of fact, some of the biggest companies that make drugs are out of the Middle East. In fact, Teva is one of the biggest drug companies in the world and it is based in Petah Tikva, Israel. Teva usually focuses its efforts on generic and proprietary drugs and it is among the biggest of the companies that make generic drugs, which is what every single pharmacy is pushing these days as it is a cheaper cost to the patient, insurance company and the pharmacy itself.

The company itself was born from Saloman, Levin, and Elstein LTD which focused on wholesale drugs in Jerusalem in 1901. From there the immigrants in the 1930’s founded new companies like Teva and then in 1964 two companies called Assia and Zori merged and took over the controlling stock in Teva. But it wasn’t until the mid seventies that the three companies were able to merge together and become the Teva company as it is known today.

Of course Teva was too smart to stand pat, since then it has taken over a variety of drug companies including Ivax, which was one of the biggest of generic drugs anywhere in the world. But Teva was still not getting the presence in the United States that it had hoped. In 1982 the FDA gave their blessing on the Kfar Sava plant which allowed them to put a foothold in the American market.

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Making Your Meds More Effective

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A lot of people all over the world are on a regular schedule of pharmacy drugs, but far less that are thinking of ways to use them effectively. There are many out there who could benefit from a change in their therapy or could discontinue medication altogether but don’t take an active interest in it to make it happen. There are many ways you can make sure you are getting the most out of your medication.

1. Make Friends With Your Pharmacist – Your pharmacist knows more about the medication you are taking then your doctor does so they are someone to have a good dialogue with. Make sure you are asking them if they think the medication is the most effective for your condition. They will give you an honest answer and they might end up making a better choice for you. They may also be able to spot possible drug interactions that other drugs cannot spot and, for that, they are beyond their normal value.

2. Inform Your Doctor – When your doctor puts you on a new medication, it’s important to tell the doctor that what you are experiencing or feeling. What might not seem like a big deal to you might be a very big deal to your doctor. Make sure you are talking to your doctor all the time and that the two of you continue to search for the best medication.

3. Do More Than Pop Pills – Sure, being on the medication certainly will help any condition you might have, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the only thing you should be doing. As a matter of fact the most important thing you should do is eat a good diet and exercise as often as you can. If you take care of yourself the medicine won’t matter nearly as much and that’s what you’re striving for.

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From Brand to Generic

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Just because you get medication from the pharmacy doesn’t mean you fully understand how the world of pharmacies work. As a matter of fact it can be downright baffling to someone who doesn’t have the time or the energy to pay attention or do the research. It’s not like drug companies are going out of their way to make you aware of the ins and outs of their businesses, so it’s important to pick up information whenever you can. One of the areas that seems to baffle most people is when it comes to brand and generics.

You might hear people ask “When is this becoming available in a generic?” But the fact is that most people in the pharmacy don’t know the exact date when that will happen. However, knowing the process in it’s simplest forms will certainly clue you in to just how long to expect to wait until your drug becomes a generic drug. Assisted living pharmacies have a great number to keep track of when it comes to medications; however the residents don’t always understand exactly what their options are, and with no more money coming in, saving a little can mean a lot.

When a drug is first in its developmental stages and the company thinks it has something that is ready to be tested and marketed, they will issue a patent on the formulation and the make up the drug so other companies don’t try and get rich off of their research and development. Of course, getting a patent takes some time. That’s why you will see things that say “patent pending” which means that they can still go ahead with their technology and be covered in case someone tries to steal it but they may not yet have the exclusivity they want until it passes a series of tests. This is a major factor in when a brand drug becomes a generic. As long as the patent is in place or pending, only the company itself can actually make the drug. That’s when all the tests begin.

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The Testing Phase

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We are fully aware that drugs are not something that go into effect every day. The drugs you pick up at the pharmacy, even the over the counter medications, have taken years to get to there. So the real question isn’t about when the medications become drugs that you buy but first, how the drug goes from an idea to something that can be sold to patients. Here is the next step in that process.

When a drug has a patent on it, the company will start doing rigorous tests on the drugs. They will test people in the market that they are trying to sell the drugs in. If it’s a blood pressure medication they will look to target those with hypertension and see if they can administer the drug to them in a study and monitor the results. This will mean that they will also be recording side effects of the drug. Now, by law the drug companies have to inform you if anything comes up in the study. If one patient has a panic attack as a result of the drug, even if they are the only one, then it must be listed as a possible side effect. This is to make sure that patients are informed and drug companies protect their investment. Once it has gone through the necessary steps it is sent off for the approval of the FDA. They will consider all the data and make a choice that is right for the people and the drug itself. Many patents end up having to go through further testing before they are approved.

Once a drug ends up making it past the government and their regulations, it’s time for the drug to be shipped to the pharmacies and end up being the drugs you take home with you.

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