The Real Deal vs. Generics

I like real drugs. Of course I'm talking about prescription drugs. As a clean and sober person for 23 years, any other kinds are irrelevant to me. But I do take a couple or three prescription drugs as my body dictates. I could probably eliminate them altogether if I'd eat fruits and veggies, fish (broiled or baked), and organic lotsa things, but I'm too hooked on the stuff that, as far as I'm concerned, make life worth living. But I digress. Let's not get into that right now.

My doctors prescribe whatever they have ascertained will work to get rid of whatever we're trying to get rid of. Sometimes there's a generic available. They call it the generic "equivalent." I'm no expert, but from what more than one doctor over the years have told me, generics are not equivalent to the real thing. At least not all of them. So I choose to stick with the real deal even if it costs me more. And oh boy, does it cost me more!

One of my prescriptions erroneously got filled with a generic, and it was dirt cheap. I can't remember how much ir cost but it wasn't worth budgeting for. The brand name, the original, the real deal cost me $75 for one month's worth. Whew! And that's with insurance that includes prescription coverage!

Worse, when doctors do prescribe brand name drugs, often those busy doctors get called back or faxed back with the question, "Do you REALLY want to prescribe this and not the generic?" It's a pain in the ass for the prescriber, and somebody has to pay the pharmacy staff person who has to follow up to confirm that the idiot prescriber really, really, really means to pass up the wonderful generic. One of my doctors speculated that somebody's gotta be paying somebody something (graft, premiums, bonuses) for that to happen as a matter of course.

So what's my objection? I'm a lay person; I don't know squat about drugs. But enough of my doctors have said that generics aren't the equivalent of the original forumla that I believe them. Generics (some, most, whatever) often have different (usually more) fillers; they don't have the exact same active ingredients; they don't work with everybody's body. So give me the one that we know works, I say.

Even with OTC, as they affectionately call "over the counter" drugs, I buy the brand names. Anacin (hard to find nowadays) over aspirin. Robitussin over just tussin. Etc.

Same with other types of products -- food, bottles and jars of creams and lotions, cleaning products, etc., ad infinitum. I like brands. I trust them more and I like their appearance better. (Typical of a Libra)

I looked just now and out of several hundred products I probably have at home, I have exactly two generics: Duane Reade Alcohol Prep Swabs (sexy name, eh?) and America's Choice Tall Kitchen Bags (since Glad changed theirs to a thinner bag, and Hefty's always been Flimsy, Flimsy, Flimsy, not Hefty, Hefty, Hefty). That's about all there will ever be in my household.

So that's what 15 years in the advertising business did for me. Although...a friend of mine who's been in that biz far longer than I recently bought something generic, which I gave her a ration of shit for. (But she's not a Libra)

Anyway, I'm paying more for my real-deal drugs and, at least for me, it's worth it.