I have been taking over the counter Nexium for 1 month now. I have taken Rx nexium for several?

Yes. Depending on what lab make the generic - wether it be one in Germany or one in India you could be getting 20% more active ingredient or 20% less. A real problem for drugs like topamax which is take for essential tremors. One month you get 20% extra from Germany the next month 20% less from India and your having withdraw symptoms plus wondering why it doesn't work. With some drugs it is best to insist on name brand only.

Yes the generic has to have the same ingredients to be called generic. As per my druggist the difference us i. The filler only.

If you are seeing a pharmacist at a chain drug store, they are brainwashed to push generics because they make about 85% profit on them versus 10%. THey will swear that generics "work" the same, but most of them are young and have never suffered GERD!! The publicly owned pharmacies are all about profit! They feel they are protected by the wording of the generic guidelines and have little empathy for the patient. Go to a locally owned pharmacy for the truth. Even morally driven, older pharmacist at chains have too much pressure from their corporate office to maintain high profitability. It's a shame.

My pharmacists are with Meijer, a large chain in MI, and they have fought my insurance company on my behalf for the last 4 years. They also didn't want to fill the prescription for the generic as they knew it would not work for me because of the ferrous oxide. I think sometimes it has to do with the individual pharmacist and the relationship you have with them.

Like all of you I've had simikuar problems. Been on some type of other of these drugs over 30 yrs! Starting w the really old type & after some time it stops working, but the Nexium works! But my insurance wouldn't cover it, with the dr's telling them I had to be on it my copay was still too expensive. I got accepted into the AZ& ME program where they sent it to me free the last two years! However, yesterday I got a letter saying they are discontinuing it from the program. SERIOUSLY!! Since I've tried the itc previously with Prevacid, finding its NOT the same as the prescription, & after reading everything you all wrote here I'm not even going to try. So than you, you all saved me the time & expense.
I have enough until January, after that I don't know what I'm going to do.

Generic Nexium did not work for me.

Generic Nexium did not work for me.

Pfizer makes Nexium OTC 20mg. AstraZeneca makes the prescription Nexium 40mg. Also anyone can go to www.purplepill.com and print off a saving coupon where you can get the prescription 40mg for $15 a month. And if the doctor writes the prescription for 90 days then it is only $30 total.

A study will never be done if it wasn't done for the original trials, so just go by your own experience. As a former rep for AZ, this will always be anecdotal. Especially since it went generic and profits decreased by 95%.

I'm having the same issues as you all are. My pharmacist told me the OTC goes into the body in a different form & your body must convert it and that my body wasn't doing the conversion. My insurance won't cover the RX either, even with documentation that the OTC doesn't work!

Generic aciphex (raberprozale) works very well but I prefer nizatidine only because is an h2 blocker and all but 2 meds work for me . Raditadine and omeprozale

Population control if we die of esophageal cancer

I am so glad that i found this site. I have been having the same problems with switching to over the counter Nexium from a script because insurance won't pay for it anymore, even with a Doctor's preauthorization the copay is way too much for most people to swallow. I found that the generic did not agree with me and then I had an allergic reaction to Dexilant which was suggested and would be covered by insurance . I too have had pharmacists and Doctors tell me the over the counter Nesium was the same but its not. One of them did confess that they don't work the same. Why Nexium is so expensive is beyond me, they are only hurting themselves by shutting out insurance plans and customers like us with exorbitant pricing. Insurance companies will be sorry they did not cover this drug when Doctors need to order an Endoscopy for all of us having continued problems.

I am not a physician or a pharmacist, but I have been on Nexium 40mg once a day for 9 years now to control GERD and Reflux due to a very weak LES (Lower Esophageal Sphincter). I was luckily able to switch to the generic of Nexium when it came out without issue - but from my reading, I understand that Nexium used a patented delivery mechanism different than the generic. Even though the medicine and total amount is equal, prescription Nexium, to my knowledge, contains small beads of the medicine within the main pill each encapsulated in their own enteric coating for delayed release. I do not believe the generic has this. So the difference may be 40mg all at once vs 40mg delivered consistently over 24 hours.

I have been taking Nexium 40 mg. for almost 10 years. A few months ago I tried the OTC 20 mg 2 X daily. I had the same problem that I had with most other proton pump inhibitors before starting Nexium 40... increased motility ( about 10 BMs a day, irritable bowel, gas cramping) I tried OTC because of the HUGE price for the RX now. Plus there was break through on the acid because taking it the second time was not on a totally empty stomach and not as affective. I went back to the RX but I have now been having problems with it. The same reaction. I know that the delivery system was different in the OTC and now I am wondering if they have also changed the delivery on the RX version. It worked fine for me for almost 10 years and now gas and multiple BMs daily since I tried the OTC. Really frustrating.

The OTC has ferris oxide in it that the RX does not. It is iron. Some of us have a real problem with it, others have no problem at all. If you are using the OTC take 2 in the morning, rather than using it 2x a day. That will give you the same amount of active ingredient as the RX. Sometimes when you get out of whack, it takes a while to get back. Watch what you eat, avoid things that can cause problems like salad, excess veggies, dairy, etc. You might try 40 mg 2x/day if your Dr approves to get back in control. Good luck.

As someone stated, the difference in potency of a generic might be 20% less OR 20% more within the same bottle; therefore, a 40% swing in efficacy can be a serious problem. THe brand name is only allowed a plus or minus 10%. Much more controlled. Imagine if you take 4 days of plus 20% efficacy, then the next day it is negative 20%!!! You can have major reflux!!
Also, the fillers in the medicine can be whatever the manufacturer wants, versus the well studied fillers used for efficacy during FDA trails. Generics are only required to have the same principal ingredients, not fillers (delivery systems). Even by the ones having the manufacturers name on the generic. They usually hire a generic producer that has less quality standards and only profit in mind. I was in pharmaceutical sales for over 40 years, and this was well known. We even sold against generics using this rationale.

IT IS NOT THE SAME !!! No one knows my body like ME !!! I have been taking the 40 Mg Prescription NEXIUM FOR DECADES with FULL SUCCESS. Now Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Louisiana REFUSES to cover this medication. Their words are the OTC is the SAME!!! Well it is NOT. I have been taking it for 2 mos. and have constant Pain. The medications are not the same. I am renewing my fight for MY HEALTH BENEFITS !!!

Revseb, the OTC, as well as all the generics, has ferrous oxide in it, a form of iron. Many of us cannot handle that. Get your Dr on your side & fight for a prior authorization. When I had BCBS in Michigan, my Dr got me a lifetime of the policy waiver. My new insurance fought us like hell, finally giving me a 3 month waiver, stating we would have to go through the process every 3 months & it took a month of fighting each time. The third time my Dr's staff & I both went after them about the stupidity of this and won a 1 year approval. Point out that your body cannot handle the iron. Keep fighting, it's your health & life. I'll keep you in my prayers.

They are two different manufacturers. Pfizer makes the Nexium OTC, Astra Zeneca makes the prescription form. We too are going through s dilemma trying to decide what to do for Barrett's Esophagus since our Medicare RX plan does not have Nexium on formulary! It is s but daunting to switch to generic or otc after getting amazing healing with Nexium RX.

FWIW, while I was taking the prescription version I was taking it twice a day, per Dr.'s prescription since my reflux is so bad. Obviously, check with your Dr first, but it might help you to in addition to taking 2 of the 20 mg pills daily to take the dose twice daily or just one 20 mg pill for the second dose.

I would consider fighting, again, except that due to the fact that I'm on Medicare now it would be pretty much moot. I'd end up in the doughnut hole and paying for a significant percentage of my prescriptions myself regardless. I do think however that we should all be fighting for a law to prevent manufacturers and insurance companies from being able to do these sorts of things to people. We aren't a numbers game. We are living, breathing, feeling lives. Ethics seems to be a concept which is long forgotten and doesn't apply in politics and big business. THAT is what we need to be fighting so that we don't have to keep continuing to fight these unethical battles.

There is a difference in the fillers which make up the delivery system, and in the 10 to 20 percent the FDA allows, which when both combined, can mean a significant difference in how much, and whether or not the drug is reaching it's target in the same manner as the original formula. Both of these will affect a person. If the drug has the same active ingredients but isn't able to reach the receptor's in the same way the original formula does, then it will seem ineffective. Same goes for that up to 20% difference generics are allowed. So if cheap filler's and a 20% drop in active ingredients are present, it only makes sense why people are feeling that the generics do not work the same.

Did 20 mg prescription nexium work for you? If it didn't you might try taking 3 of the OTC nexiums all at the same time and see if that works. OTC's contain 10 to 20% less meds than the real thing and they probably don't absorb as well as the real thing (just guessing that making the ingredients in a form that is well absorbed also costs money)