If so, why not just buy generic ibuprofen?
I live in Japan and can’t read the word for ibuprofen. 
ETA: on second thought, I haven’t really looked, because I’m sure it’s something like aibupurofuen. Crazy ass alphabet.
Katakana: ruining foreign language study for the Japanese for 1200 years.
I buy generic for myself, but I buy my grandmother Advil. The name’s stamped on it, you see, so even if she spills the bottle, or if the pills are in her little pill-sorter box, she knows what it is. With the generics, she kept getting them mixed up with something else (I forget what.)
I probably should have done this for generic drugs in general.
I buy Advil. I don’t know why I don’t buy generic ibuprofen, I just don’t.
I use ibuprofen (that’s Tylenol right?), but I’d use Advil if that was all that was at the store.
No. Tylenol is acetaminophen.
I buy generic gelcaps. Look almost identical to Advil are sometimes $1.50 to $2.00 cheaper and guess what??? Do the same exact thing! 
Is the generic stuff as sweet? I love how sugary the Advil tastes.
Pretty much, yeah. Unless it’s a gelcap or something, ibuprofen will have a “safety coating” that reduces the amount that will be released in the stomach (which is why you really shouldn’t suck on them for the sweetness.) Ibuprofen really isn’t very nice to your stomach, hence the safety coating.
To answer the OP: yes. It’s cheaper, and works just as well. I don’t see why anyone would ever buy name-brand drugs unless they have no other option (name brand still has the patent/no generic offered/very small off-chance of allergy or bad reaction to the fillers used in generics.)
I buy Extra-Strength Tylenol. I dunno why. Habit.
Note: There are still fillers and binders (excipients) in brand-name products as well, so there is also a chance that you’d be allergic to the name brand but not the generic.
Yeah, but again- generic, the savings are large.
Note dudes- Nitetime products are just the painkiller plus something like Benadry. So take a generic painkiller and a generic Benedrly and you’ll save a lot.
There just seems to be something different. I will swear by Excedrin until I die. I have no idea why it is effective for me but it is. My headache or any pains are just gone.
I freely admit that I buy the brand name. Why? simple–I’ve used it before, and I know it works for me. When I have a headache, I don’t want to run a medical experiment on myself; I want to stop the pain, right now.
And I only swallow maybe 20 or 30 Advils in a year, so cost isn’t an issue.
I buy Advil because it was what saved my sanity the first time I had mind-boggling cramps…when I was twelve years old and losing my mind.
I’m 99% sure that the generic ibuprofen would work just as well.
But if cramps are involved, I’m not taking that 1% chance.
FYI I never take Tylenol or aspirin. Ever. I don’t know why. I just use Advil for everything. It’s always worked.
I’m a fan of generic. I was really annoyed with the student store at my college. They didn’t have my cramp-killer of choice (Naproxen Sodium) in either generic or name brand, nor did they have generic ibprofen. I had to spend just under five dollars once because my cramps came on hard and fast and if I didn’t get something in my system, I was likely to start throwing up in the middle of Numerical Analysis.
Generic, all the way.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten into arguments with otherwise rational people who somehow think name brands have something extra and insist endlessly that they are affected differently by them.
Generic ibruprofen here. It’s half the price of Advil and I need that extra money to buy gasoline.
Excedrine is a combination of acetaminophen, aspirin, and caffeine.
We have that problem sometimes at work. For instance, the drug Lotrel recently went generic, and the brand-name company, Novartis, was making the generic. For a while, the two capsules were identical. The generic version had exactly the same markings, size shape and color. Down to the printed “LOTREL”. We tried convincing people to switch to the generic, showed them the bottles, showed them the capsules, and they wouldn’t budge. They were much happier paying a 50 dollar co-pay instead of 10. :rolleyes:
And that’s not including the lady who doesn’t have enough money to buy a month’s worth of medicine at once, so she comes in every two weeks or so, but insists on name-brand everything. Some of them we keep in stock JUST for her.
AFAIK, over-the-counter generics aren’t required to undergo bioequivalence testing, but one can pick up the boxes and compare ingredients. Generic equivalents for prescription drugs, OTOH, must undergo testing to ensure they contain the same amount of active ingredient and release it the same as the name-brand. (Warning: PDF )