Despite my user name, I am not a medical doctor. So, I am looking for information about Norco which is apparently a painkiller. I have never heard of it before. The WebMD site just puts me to sleep with more medical/chemical stuff I don’t understand and so I am left none the wiser in reading it.
I have taken Vicodin and Codine in the past as well as over the counter stuff. How does Norco compare to those? I am going to be taking it as I am getting arthroscopic surgery on my shoulder next week. So it won’t be for a long period of time. Just want to find out if I am going to be zonked out of my head or what here. I gather the addiction risk is low as I am not going to be using it long term.
Any data on this would be appreciated. Anecdotes are even welcome as any drug is going to affect different people in different ways, so I just want to know what I might experience.
I thought about that, but I figured since I was asking what it was, GQ would be better. Ah well.
So, it’s Vicodin. Does that mean my doctor is getting a kickback from some drug company for recommending their brand, or is there a valid reason to specify a particular brand?
There can be reasons to chose one brand over another, but typically it doesn’t matter. Did the doctor write “No substitutions” or “Brand name only” on the script (or something to that effect)? If he just wrote “Norco”, the pharmacy will probably give you a generic anyways.
He just wrote Norco, so yeah, I guess I’ll be getting the generic. Still, I kind of wonder why he would put the specific brand name Norco when it is better known as Vicodin.
There’s still a lot of free lunches going out. What’s really disappearing is the fancy dinners (for all the staff and their spouses) and the vacations.
I’ve been a doc for over 25 years, and I never got any of those. The vacations, that is. There were a handful of fancy dinners, but that was long ago and far away, and I don’t even remember what drugs they were pushing.
I’ve run in to doctors that would tell stories of the drug companies sending them to Florida for golfing vacations or snorkeling trips in Mexico, but that was quite a while ago. About 15 years ago, the drug companies were able to send an entire office to a fancy $100+ restaurant, with spouses. Then it went to office staff only, and eventually, doctors only (I think PAs get in on it sometimes as well). Now, it’s mostly just lunches, in the office, usually with a $10-$15 per person budget. And they have to get a signature from each person to justify the budget. I do still work with some reps that are given the occasional $100 per person budget but that’s normally for a “speaker program” where the rep is bringing in someone from the drug company to talk about something. That’s usually done in a nice restaurant so they have everyone’s attention.
Come to think of it, 7 or 8 years ago my ex-MIL and quite a few other people were flown to Austria to learn about a new drug that was just about to be OK’d by the FDA in the States. The company wanted to make sure the second they got the go ahead they could start moving the meds without spending time training everyone. IIRC, they were there for 10 days with about an a few hours of learning each day and the rest of the time they were on their own. But that’s different.
Do they ever give out “free samples” of medications–you know, like “trial size,” that you can give to an impoverished patient who can’t afford to go to a pharmacy?
So Norco is easier to write? That is such a prosaic reason, but it does make sense. I guess if I had to write scripts a lot, I would take the shortest and easiest route in every possible case.
There is definitely the idea around that the drug companies woo the doctors to prescribe their drugs. I guess not so much anymore. I guess a lot more of it just straight up advertising now.
Yes, all the clinics, hospitals and doctors office I’ve been to have a fully stocked sample closet. It’s not even for the ‘impoverished patient’ but really anyone who asks or even so the Doc can say “Here try this, this and this, let me know which one works best and I’ll call in a script” When my ENT wanted me to use Nasonex, I mentioned to him that it costs me about $100 per month. He handed me a years worth of samples.
That’s getting squeezed out, too. In my current practice, we never see drug reps or get free samples. But when I see my own doc, he tells me it’s such a PITA to get samples from the drug rep (even the non narcotic ones require tons of paperwork and tracking) that they tend not to bother anymore.
They still want to, and would if they could. It’s the hospitals that are putting the brakes on it. A lot of hospitals around here are starting to ban lunches, pens, post it notes, gifts etc… The drug reps still usually find ways to sneak the lunches and gifts in.
Oddly, some of those hospitals extend the ban to more then just the doctors. My ex FIL is Chief of Maintenance (that’s maintenance as in fixing things, putting on new roofs, installing equipment, not cleaning puke). A few years ago he got his hand slapped for having a magnet on his file cabinet with the number for a parts wholesaler. Mind you, his office is in the bowels of the hospital. Most patients couldn’t find it if they tried and there would be almost no reason for anyone other then his employees to be down there. On top of that, it was in a place where even his employees wouldn’t see it. The only reason he had it was so he had easy access to their number. But, it was still against the rules and he had to take it down.
Yeah, and easier to understand. That was the kind of info I was getting from a Google search on Norco and it was making my eyes spin. Post on the Dope and have a clear cut answer in a few minutes and some extra interesting information.
Well, yes and no. Yes, in that it’s just for a phone number, but the reasoning is the same. They don’t want the maintenance people to use this supplier instead of that one, because this one gives them free magnets. They don’t want them to take a bid from Contractor A because he promised them all new hard hats (with the contractor’s logo on it). It’s not that different from not wanting a doctor to write a script for Norco when generic Tylenol 3 would do just fine because the Norco girl keeps giving them food.
The problem is, and I still have to go out and confirm this on my own, that they don’t spend nearly as much money on advertising as they do on research. Research is what really drives up the cost of meds. But, the patients, sitting in the waiting room see the drug rep come in with bags of goodies, they see me or my employees (I cater for drug reps, BTW) walk in with lunch for the staff, they fill out forms on a Norco clip board with a Viagra pen and get samples in an Imitrex bag. When the price of a drug is really high, the patients automatically assume it’s because the drug companies spend so much on advertising.
It’s the same chemical compound as Vicodin, but it doesn’t come in the same strengths. Norco has a strength of acetaminophen which is always 325, Vicodin only comes in 5/500, 10/660 and 7.5/750. They are both hydrocodone/apap but come in different variations of strengths. Your doctor isn’t getting a kickback from the manufacturers of Norco, it’s been generic for years. It’s no big conspiracy, it’s just shorter to write than “hydrocodone/acetaminophen 10/325mg”
