My doctor perscribed Ibuprofen for me and each pill is 800 MG but whenever i take for to calm a arthritis flare up I am still in pain 3 hours later. But when I buy the regular Ibuprofen on the shelf at the pharmacy and take 4 pills that equal 800 mg, the pain is gone completely in 3 hours.
Anyone feel that pain pill by the doctor is not as effective as the ones over the counter?
And I don’t think I should take 2 pain pills that would be 1600 mg or should I?
Make sure you’re comparing red apples to red apples. Are you buying brand name Motrin IB as your OTC choice, but the pharmacy only has generic? There’s not supposed to be a difference, but IME, there often is.
Moderator Action
While part of this is factual, the OP also seeks personal experiences and advice, so let’s move this to IMHO. Factual information related to the effectiveness of the medication is of course still welcome.
Moving thread from General Questions to In My Humble Opinion.
Not without doctor’s orders, 800mg is already horse-strength.
I agree, gotpasswords - sometimes it can be as simple as the gel used for the capsule of a generic brand causing some slightly adverse reaction. FWIW, I sometimes take Mersyndol for stress headaches, and the one time I accepted the generic brand, it gave me a headache. And nausea. Just so I got my cheap money’s worth :smack:
Could also be 4kad the placebo effect. Maybe taking 4 pills instead of just 1 sets that in motion for you.
Don’t double the dose. Maybe go back to what works for you.
I don’t know whether Americans find this true but I find that OTC things like paracetamol (acetaminophen in the US), ibuprofen, don’t actually work.
Someone will tell me to take two for 3 days and then the pain will go…but this seems like a ‘control experiment’ fallacy, along with the placebo effect, If I hadn’t taken the OTC pain medication, the pain would have dulled just as it did on the medicine.
Ireland is particularly a shit place for medication. It has been dubbed the ‘nanny state’. Pretty much ANYTHING that is available OTC in other Western countries that can be an alternative for medicine is banned.
Banned or on prescription supplements/medications
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L- tryptophan (involved in serotonin)
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Melatonin (sleeping aid)
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Numbing creams (benzocaine, lidocaine <2% w/v, need a prescription for such a low amount)
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Nurofen Plus (pain medication containing codeine)
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I’ve been thinking of trying to order from the UK or Europe but I’m not sure I want a custom love letter in my mailbox. :mad:
I find that that typical over the counter stuff is like a non-working placebo to me, too, but when I’m in the right country I like to pick up nimesulide (brand name might be Mesulid), which actually does seem to work.
I wouldn’t take too much of it, though, as there’s probably some reason it’s banned in the USA.
…Ireland doesn’t need all that pharmaceutical shit, femmejean - it has whiskey…!
All the OTC stuff works fine for me.
The pills that mother gives you, don’t do anything at all.
They work fine for me and mom; the effects of a single paracetamol on Grandma were clearly visible. But different ones work for different people and even for different things: I have both paracetamol headaches and ibuprofen headaches (they’re clearly different and each type responds to a different med), and for my period it’s ibuprofen.
Seconding the statement that different brands, especially generic vs. name brand, can vary in effect for some people.
In my experience, for example, brand name Paxil works; generic doesn’t. This is not just my own observation. My daughter actually called it to my attention when I’d been using the generic.
I’ve also found that antihistamines keep me awake. They make many people sleepy.
Also acetaminophen (Tylenol) does two things for me: Diddly and Squat.
I have noticed a profound difference in the various generics for Imitrex I have been given over the years. I have had one that worked better than brand name Imitrex, some that were indistinguishable from the brand name product, and others that might as well have been placebos.
I am another for whom Tylenol does absolutely nothing. Ibuprofen works. Tylenol does not.
I find a difference between Motrin and store brands as well as Ambien and it’s genetics.
I have never found any over the counter cold medications to be effective at all. During one particularly unpleasant round, I decided that I would double my dose every hour until I found a level that would actually relieve any one symptom. Believe it or not, I got “high” - and it’s not a bad high, honestly - before any of my symptoms ceased.
I’m not saying that this was a smart strategy. Instead, just see it as the act of a miserable human being.
See! It’s got double-acting potency! Works two ways to make you better!!
I can hear the ads now.
For ear infection level pain? Yes, it works, but id better have food on my stomach?
For rec use? I can see how oxycontin is dangerous. i felt like I had to physically make myself breath.
Below that? It only ever did nothing or made me sick. I never felt it actually relieve pain…except for ear infections.
I got Vicodin after my wisdom teeth were yanked and took maybe three. They did zilch for the pain plus they made me nauseous, which seemed sub optimal when I had gaping wounds in my mouth.
Oh god, I did that once - accidentally doubled up on some OTC “x-Treme sore throat” stuff and was high as a fucking kite. Would probably have been quite fun if I hadn’t been so miserably sick. I think it was TheraFlu.
My dentist gave me a Rx for vicodin once, I tried one, and went back to OTC ibuprofin, which worked better.
On the other hand, when I had a kidney stone, my dr.gave me codeine. I still had the pain, but I didn’t care. I thought, no wonder people get hooked on this stuff. But that only worked once.
After I had 23andMe analyze my genome, I ran it through Promethease to get more in-depth medical info. One interesting set of results were about medicines that likely do and don’t work for me. Specifically, opiates and acetaminophen were unlikely to help me much–and that 100% reflects my real-life experience.
After I had a c-section I was prescribed some kind of opiate painkiller. It did nothing but make my daughter too sleepy to nurse. Two OTC ibuprofens worked great.