I want to suggest other members so they may avoid what I have gone through. Please keep track of the manufacturers of your medications that work and those that don't. A friend of my parents and I talked about his work as a pharmaceutical researcher. He has more than a few medication patents. I mentioned how sometimes I would have a prescription for my generic Fiorinal with Codeine, which would work wonderfully well. Other times it wouldn't work or gave me side effects like a rebound migraine that would hit me like a sledgehammer. He told me that the USA FDA requires generic medications to contain 85%-125% of the Brand name active ingredients. As for the inactive ingredients, there were no rules, and be aware that some inactive ingredients can cause allergic reactions, interfere with absorption of the active ingredients, and so on. The inactive ingredients are responsible for the differences in size, color, etc., of the same medication tablet from different manufacturers. So I started to pay attention to my generic manufacturers. The Watson brand was the best at treating my migraine pain. It would work as well as the Brand name (when the generic came out, my insurance stopped covering the Brand name). I tried Breckenridge (Ascomp), which didn't do anything for my migraine pain. Lannett brand would take my pain down a smidge, but the rebound migraine would hit me like a sledgehammer, almost making me stagger it would hit so hard.
I found that Walgreens pharmacy would special order my Watson brand, and I would have my migraines treated and didn't have to fear getting another migraine. Over the years, Activis bought out Watson, and Teva bought out Activis. However, I could still get my Watson brand. Fast forward to this month. A new pharmacist at my Walgreens did not know how to order my Watson brand, and I agreed to try the new brand, Amneal. So far, two weeks of a non-stop migraine and the rebound migraines were sledgehammer worthy. I researched and found that Amneal bought out Lannett and relabeled the Lannett brand as Amneal. Well, no wonder I was having a terrible time with it. I have to wait two more weeks until my refill appointment and have already asked the head pharmacist to be the one to order my preferred brand for the next time. Side note: this generic preference also extends to other medications (I take a blood pressure medication and have to be careful of the brand). I wanted to share my learning experience so that, hopefully, others could avoid my problems.
