Why is generic norco m367 so weak?

Wow, I'm shocked at how flippant some of these comments (not just under this original comment but others below) are. "It's all in your head" or "they just don't work for you anymore" makes me absolutely furious. In addition to being a healthcare professional of over 30 years I have suffered with chronic pain for many years and have taken other versions of the Watson (yellow oblong pill) over several years without difficulty. Fortunately, during warm weather I can wean down to a lower dose and this past summer got completely off with the help of regular yoga practice. I have NEVER had a problem taking generics and never thought it was an issue with me so nix the its "all in your head" comments. I had to go back on the pain med last fall and have been given the Watson brand all year. I had never had this M367 pill until last week.

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The effect on my pain (I usually stay at a Level 5 this time of year with the help of this drug in combination with a few others prescribed by my pain management MD) was almost immediate but since I don't take issue with changes in brands it took me 4 days of intractable pain at a level 10 at least and missing two days of work to finally make a correlation. So don't tell someone it is all in the head or they have developed a tolerance. Of course long term use will require more per day due to tolerance but in combination with other meds to assist with effectiveness they often can work for many years or indefinately. Rule of thumb should be if the med has been working for you in another brand it is NOT a tolerance issue. There is only one explanation for what happened to me and it was the change from the Watson to M367. By the way, does anyone know why the 5/325 have the numbers M365 on the tablet but the one with the alleged dosage of 10/325 is stamped M367? Hmmmm... There is a dose of 7.5/325 that exists. What is it stamped and why wouldn't a genuine 10/325 be stamped M3610? There is enough room on the tablet for M3610.. Then there are all the complaints not only on the Internet but when I called my CVS to inquire (not because of the brand change so again, not in my head) but because after 4 days I finally really looked at the tab and I thought they had gotten the dosage wrong since the pill is stamped M367. They wouldn't tell me if they were getting complaints but they immediately offered up a different brand. Unfortunately, my carrier will only pay for one fill a month so I am out $150 and 2 days pay just so someone else could be cavalier with a severely ill patient's lifeline med to save a buck. I too can read the pharmaceutical literature but people, if you knew what I know you'd know you can't believe everything you read. FDA does allow for wiggle room on this issue and the shear numbers of people who are complaining about the M367, something I didn't find out until after my little jaunt through hell and back due to this poorly formulated med, tells me there is a REAL PROBLEM with this brand. People are different and there may be chronic painers out there that do fine on the M367 but I suspect if a true unbiased pole could be done (dream on) the number of people who do not do well on this manufacturer's version would be statistically significant. So rbob, so let the naysayers sway you into believing it is all in your mind or this medication is no longer effective for you. If you were doing well on a different brand it is NOT in your head and it has NOT become ineffective for you. Change back to a manufacturer you know works for you.

Sorry guys if this first post for me is so impassioned, I'm usually pretty easy going but what I have experienced since 1/31/13 (still waiting on my new med as they are having to get it in stock) has been horrible, expensive and just plain the wrong thing to do to anyone enduring a life of chronic pain but trying hard to live normally and not be a burden to family. We were all scared that something new had developed in my disease process! That is just plain cruel!

How do you know it has in it what it says? Have you had it tested by an objective lab or are you just reading the drug insert or something similar? What if it is not the active ingtediemts that are the problem but actually something they are using for an inert ingredient that blocks the effectiveness of the active ingredients for people with chronic pain syndromes such as fibromyalgia? Don't dismiss this and belittle those who suffered from this med. It is that attitide that adds to our suffering and gives this manufacturer carte blanche to ignore the masses who are complaining about their experience! If you haven't read mine, I hope you will read my very first entry. I am my pain management MD's star patient. I use yoga to help manage my pain as well as during extended periods of good weather I titrate down on my meds & this last summer was able to get off almost everything until the weather got cold again.

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I am an RN with 35 years experince, I do not have an addictive personality and am proactively trying to keep my life as normal as possible though my pain is almost as bad as it gets. I am respected by my peers, family & friemds. I will not be dismissed by anyone. There is something wrong with this formulation when used on most patients suffering from a chronic pain syndrome of some type!

Oxyaaron, have you read my comment above? If not, please do. Everyone develops some tolerance to their pain meds, dosages are adjusted, nonnarcotic meds & other therapies are used on conjuction to formulate a somewhat effective treatment which, due to tolerance and advancing condition, must be tweaked occasionally. This is gradual. You don't go from one refill working to the next doing what this shabbily formulated med did to me! I am back on a better version of generic and happily, after a few days of recovery from the damage that trash did to me I am back to where I was before I was given m367. BTW, no one has been able to answer my question as to why their 5/325 is stamped with m365 while the allegedly formulated 10/325 is stamped m367. Why not m3610? There is room on the tab. Hmmmm.

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People! Read my experience provided above before commenting. Fellow chronic painers who not only have to live in agony on a daily basis, but also have to endure the comments & prejudices of those who haven't walked a mile in your shoes & have no knowledge other than what they parrot from a textbook or the drug manufacturers' inserts. If modern medicine truly understood chronic pain, like fibromyalgia and other such syndromes, they could cure us instead of putting bandaides on us. Therefore, trust yourselves. If your next refill is this drug, which doesn't work for you, don't listen to the people spewing the standard fare of the medical zombies, insist all your healthcare providers place it in your records that you had an adverse reaction to this med & your scripts should be written specifying not this manufacturer. I had no idea & never had a problem with a generic. I didnt find out the overwhelming numbers of people who have experienced the same as I until I had been bedridden for days & in desperation went seeking answers online. Yes, there are the sprinkling of complaints for other pain meds but the masses who have complained about THIS ONE cannot continue to be ignored. Something is wrong with this formulation when it comes to those with chronic pain !

I just want you to read my original comment and the experience I had. Additionally, I wanted to raise awareness on how hurtful it is to have others just blow us off by saying it's all in our head or we or developing a tolerance or quote from a drug reference. All chronic pain sufferers get a bad rap due to the bad apples out there that are trying to game the system and helping to turn our ED's into overcrowded frustrating and dangerous places, but the majority of us are good people just trying to be as productive as we have always been and our body may hurt so bad that at times we cannot get out of our beds but we still have a brain and we know when something is bad for us. I'm just frustrated with the dismissive comments.

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It is not logical or normal to go from a medication working well for you and then the next refill being this time the m367 instead of the other generic that was doing fine is given to you and you are in bed until another manufacturer from a different pharmacy is found and prescribed. If you will read what happened to me and how I had to process through it you will see I also negate another flippant hurtful comment that it is all in my head, I saw I was getting a different manufacturer and so I decided it wouldn't work... not. Yes, we can agree to disagree but my point in posting is that those who do not have to live like us do not seem to understand we are real good and honest people with brains, someone's mother, wife, grandmother, etc.(BTW it is not just the patient that suffers when they have chronic pain, so do their loved ones) and the fact that so many of us are complaining about one particular formulation should give pause to all because you may be fine now but that might not be the case next year. I was once quite athletic and in the peak of health when I was stricken with this mess. Something is wrong and it should be investigated not dismissed, so even more people who live in constant pain are subjected to this formulation until finally someone decides this is a credible event that should be investigated. By the way, that brings up another purpose for my posts, to educate the victims on here. You do have rights. In addition to requesting you all have all your healthcare providers place a note in your chart in the allergy section (no, I know this is not an allergy but it is where providers go in a record to look for such information regarding allergies, and other adverse reactions) you should go to the FDA Medwatch website and report your experience. I did and you can too. Agreeing to disagree will not help those of us who have already been hurt by this formulation and must live in fear that all the pharmacies will go to it eventually because it must be cheaper. The best thing we can do is complain to FDA until we are heard. You can also ask your physician if he would be willing to report your event as well. My pain management doctor has seen this enough in his practice that he knows something is wrong and is not only willing to put it in his patient's records but to report to FDA. Obviously getting the story out on here is not really getting it heard, but I do thank you, even those who do not agree or believe me for at least having the decency to read my own horrible experience. My purpose for even commenting here as I seldom do this sort of thing (just too busy and have a full life) was truly to speak to those of you on this page who have expressed a knowledge that something isn't right with this formulation. Do not get discouraged by the dismissive comments. If your experience was anything like mine, you did not develop a tolerance (that is from my physician, people), it wasn't in your mind (again from my physician), there is a certain patient population with chronic pain syndrome that does not do well with this formulation (again from my physician). So don't get discouraged. Do something to protect yourself and others. Report it to your doctor and the FDA. Those who don't like what I have to say will be happy to know I'm done and won't be back. I did what I came to do and hopefully gave the people I was really speaking to some hope and direction. Thanks and Best Regards to all of you on this board:)

You have many good points, and really everyone who posted comments are doing so with the intention to help. I also suffer from chronic pain and am all to familiar with the stigma attached. In fact one of the primary reasons for me being let go was due to my boss finding out that I suffered from what she only saw as a weakness. I was not let go due to performance or really any other factor than that. It sucks.

I think that you would be surprised at the number of people on this site who also have chronic pain and speak from experience. Tolerance is a very real issue when utilizing Opioid type medications and is a detail that I am familiar with.

I guess that all that I'm really saying is that to disagree is fine and encouraged. To tell someone that they are wrong and have no experience with the topic is simply not helpful for anyone. This if nothing else only leads to people being afraid to post helpful suggestions.

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My intentions are only that of concern, especially when a comment has been made in such a demeaning way. I'm sure that this was not what you intended, however for me it felt that way.

Thank you for sharing your experiences as the more that is shared, the better. This after all is a community of caring people who don't have to post a thing but do so out of concern and love.

I hope that you understand me here, and should you disagree with what I have said, please go ahead and mark my comment with a negative. I could care less about the point system however do care about my friends who have been there for me.

Sincerely

Jeff K

jk13- I said I wouldn't come back on here but I just read your comments about losing your job & my heart goes out to you because it didn't have to happen & "there by the grace of God go I". I hope you have found a better situation but I want to assure you know you have rights about this too so I will share my very recent experiece for your benefit & if you have since found this out, perhaps others will benefit.

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I found myself missing a lot of work because it has been a rough winter and I was sensing I might be on the bubble at work. Additionally, I have a difficult commute & it was taking 5 agonizing hours or more to get to work for a job that can be done at home. After a couple of years I knew I was almost to my end. So I consulted an Employment Attorney. He told me that I immediately needed to wrap the ADA LAW (American Disability Act) around me and protect myself. It was hard to admit my disability after years of fighting it but it was time. He told me to declare myself as disabled and demand a reasonable accommodation for it. I demanded to work from home. I have to say I am blessed because I never realized what a compassionate employer I have especially for a company that employs thousands because when I presented in our HR dept. things started happening very fast. I filled out a couple of forms, got a letter from my pain management MD & within a day I was approved for FMLA 480 hours off a year for my condition as needed & in less than a month, a committee met & I was granted my accommodation! Full time work from home! It has been a godsend & none of it required getting approved as disabled by any government entity since I was not asking for benefits, just the right to work in a way that was better for my condition.

What would my recourse have been had I not been approved? To sue for discrimination. Not something I wanted to do but I knew my accommodation was reasonable. Thank goodness my employer agreed.

I hope sharing this will help others. I had no idea all that was available to me until I asked. I just wished I had asked sooner:)

Thank you so much for your response, really, it means a lot to me. I was semi aware of what you had described however didn't act as I should have. After being let go due to company "restructuring" I seriously gave it a lot of thought to the possibility of suing. Having not signed the agreement of separation made the company well beyond nervous as I had the rare case of proof, emails printed out backing up claims of not "restructuring" but discrimination.

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After the company became aware that I had no intention on signing the paperwork agreeing to the separation, it was made clear to me that 1 company restructuring would be changed to steeling and that 2 I would have a very hard time finding employment. I work in a very narrow tight nit field in which being placed in the black book was a reality. While working as a designer of products for the home is a lot of fun, it also means that in a down market when no one is spending money is about the worse field to be involved with. I now have been able to add to the range of home products into fashion accessories.

If I had sued my future employment would have been bleak. Unfortunately this black mail gave me no real choice but to sign the paperwork. Karma does however have a way of correcting these issues. The company ever since letting me go has almost put them out of business. I honestly do not mean to brag, but I had helped place this business in front of their competition via sending china actual molds to cast from, addressing trends as well as the market, and many other details not previously addressed.

I now run my own small design studio @ www.je ffr eykret chmerd esign.com
I'd rather not have this post link directly to my business, thus the random spaces that have been added. There are still many who see chronic pain as nothing more than a bunch of weaklings who just want drugs as we all know to well.

Once again thank you for your kind response!

Jeff K

I know that most health professionals feel the same way about name brands and generics however, in my personal experience I've found various medications that do work better than generic. For instance, Ventolin is the same exact as Proair and Ventolin does work better. I was in school at the same time and just happened to be learning the differences, if any, in the generics and name brands. Another example is Tylenol 3 (namebrand). That medication doesn't give me an allergic reaction but the generic does. Why? BECAUSE THE GOVERNING LAWS THAT SAY GENERICS ARE THE SAME AS NAME BRANDS AREN'T VERIFIED TO BE THE SAME INGREDIENTS.
I had to take my grandmother in for pnuemonia and they gave her ProAir. It didn't help her. So I had to go back to ER to ask them to give her some Ventolin instead. Of course Doctor's generally don't like to be told they're wrong and even got a bit of attitude regarding the situation.

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So i patiently waited for the respiratory therapist to come in to administer a nebulizing breathing treatment and while Doc was in room I asked her if there is a difference between proair and ventolin and viola! She said yes there is. Even though they were the exact strength, dose, ingredients.
I'm not sure about the other meds but I do know their is a difference in the name brand/generics listed above.

This response was interesting as well as very informative. It was not my intention to come off harsh as I may have, however I sincerely hope that you understand my previous point. I've seen to many leave this site do to hurt feelings, many members who have left for this reason had been of extreme help for many. Instead of throwing out verbal punches, a simple story as you have told tells so much more and also helps so many that are in search of information.

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Enough of talk on that and back onto the chemistry of medications. Norco as most of us know is a very sort acting opioid, making for any sustained release to dramatically hinder its performance. I personally take methadone for chronic pain, the exact opposite when talking about a medications half life. I have never noticed any difference between the generic varieties of methadone, however did prior to its use when I was on norco. I bet that not only do the generic varieties of norco very in strength, but same for any short acting medication such as ritalin. I'm also willing to make a bet that taking a less effective norco cut up into quarters would solve the problem, although would first check with... yes, a pharmasist sp? before doing so. It might help release the medication much quicker. Obviously medications such as oxycotin has killed many who have done this sort of thing, however medications that are not designed to be a day long released would prove to be much more effective if the body has trouble breaking the tablet down. My wording here is off but I hope that you follow.

This once again could be fatal if done to the wrong medication so it is very important that a professional be consulted first. Xanax is another short acting med that seems to very more so than does a longer acting med like klonopin. This is a theory, however I would be willing to bet money that this is the primary cause to medications problem when sold as generic.