Medication Rant for terrible meds

Oldeagle66

Oldeagle66

Senior Member
I recently started having terrible headaches due to throat cancer. The VA gave me 600 mg of Ibuprofen which were barely working and I was taking 3 a day. I thought I just had to suffer. Yesterday I paid $1 at the Dollar Store for 200 mg. They are great and I have had only one pill since last night and no headache. WTF. ..... Shame on them......and me for taking them.
 

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Oldeagle66 said:
I recently started having terrible headaches due to throat cancer. The VA gave me 600 mg of Ibuprofen which were barely working and I was taking 3 a day. I thought I just had to suffer. Yesterday I paid $1 at the Dollar Store for 200 mg. They are great and I have had only one pill since last night and no headache. WTF. ..... Shame on them......and me for taking them.
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I'm unclear on what is causing your headaches. ?? I was in treatment for seven weeks, starting almost three years ago, for a throat carcinoma. The treatment was successful. For me, there was more discomfort (and other bizarre nuisances) from the radiation than the cancer. Some of the lingering after effects lasted for at least a year. But a good trade-off, I'd say.

Glad you found an inexpensive way to help with the headaches. You say you got a good deal on 200mg pills, are they also Ibuprofen?
 
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JBR said:
I'm unclear on what is causing your headaches. ?? I was in treatment for seven weeks, starting almost three years ago, for a throat carcinoma. The treatment was successful. For me, there was more discomfort (and other bizarre nuisances) from the radiation than the cancer. Some of the lingering after effects lasted for at least a year. But a good trade-off, I'd say.

Glad you found an inexpensive way to help with the headaches. You say you got a good deal on 200mg pills, are they also Ibuprofen?
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Yes
 
Oldeagle66 said:
I recently started having terrible headaches due to throat cancer. The VA gave me 600 mg of Ibuprofen which were barely working and I was taking 3 a day. I thought I just had to suffer. Yesterday I paid $1 at the Dollar Store for 200 mg. They are great and I have had only one pill since last night and no headache. WTF. ..... Shame on them......and me for taking them.
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Not many people know the Dollar Store is the best place to buy OTC drugs. They're cheap, they have less inactive ingredients to get in the way of the active ingredients, and they dissolve faster because they have thinner coatings.
 
Oldeagle66 said:
The VA gave me 600 mg of Ibuprofen which were barely working
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There is probably someone you should report this to, especially to the doctor and the pharmacy. Maybe to the FDA.

I wonder if you could get the VA pharmacy to have your 600mg pills analyzed to see if they are fake?

This site is for reporting bad drugs, I'd guess drugs that don't seem to have any active ingredient would be the same as a bad one:
MedWatch: FDA Safety Information & Adverse Event Reporting Program
 
Murrmurr said:
Not many people know the Dollar Store is the best place to buy OTC drugs. They're cheap, they have less inactive ingredients to get in the way of the active ingredients, and they dissolve faster because they have thinner coatings.
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I was on the way to CVS and stopped in the Dollar Store for something else and seen them. Glad I did now.
 
HoneyNut said:
There is probably someone you should report this to, especially to the doctor and the pharmacy. Maybe to the FDA.

I wonder if you could get the VA pharmacy to have your 600mg pills analyzed to see if they are fake?

This site is for reporting bad drugs, I'd guess drugs that don't seem to have any active ingredient would be the same as a bad one:
MedWatch: FDA Safety Information & Adverse Event Reporting Program
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Now that I think back, just before I was released from the hospital and the nurse knew I had ibuprofen from the same hospital, he hinted that I should pickup my own.
 
HoneyNut said:
There is probably someone you should report this to, especially to the doctor and the pharmacy. Maybe to the FDA.

I wonder if you could get the VA pharmacy to have your 600mg pills analyzed to see if they are fake?

This site is for reporting bad drugs, I'd guess drugs that don't seem to have any active ingredient would be the same as a bad one:
MedWatch: FDA Safety Information & Adverse Event Reporting Program
Click to expand...
They only focus on adverse reactions because it's a given that some patients simply don't respond to treatment. And it isn't for the over-seers to figure out why. That's for medical researchers to figure out.

You'd think that reporting websites like MedWatch would be required to collect *did not respond to treatment* data, but they aren't. Treating physicians and hospitals are the only sources for that data and neither one is very good at it.
 
Oldeagle66 said:
I recently started having terrible headaches due to throat cancer. The VA gave me 600 mg of Ibuprofen which were barely working and I was taking 3 a day. I thought I just had to suffer. Yesterday I paid $1 at the Dollar Store for 200 mg. They are great and I have had only one pill since last night and no headache. WTF. ..... Shame on them......and me for taking them.
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I did the same thing. Those 600mg horse pills were awful. But the "Dollar Store" ones were coated and easier on the stomach.

But 40 years later I wish I never heard of Ibuprofen. My Doctor in Eureka told me my stomach cancer could easily be due to my eating that crap like candy every time I had back pain. Which was all the time since about the mid 1980s.

Whatever you do, don't take any Naproxen!

HoneyNut said:
There is probably someone you should report this to, especially to the doctor and the pharmacy. Maybe to the FDA.
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600 mg Ibuprofen has been available for at least 40 years that I know of. The FDA knows all about it.
 
Axel Slingerland said:
I did the same thing. Those 600mg horse pills were awful. But the "Dollar Store" ones were coated and easier on the stomach.

But 40 years later I wish I never heard of Ibuprofen. My Doctor in Eureka told me my stomach cancer could easily be due to my eating that crap like candy every time I had back pain. Which was all the time since about the mid 1980s.

Whatever you do, don't take any Naproxen!


600 mg Ibuprofen has been available for at least 40 years that I know of. The FDA knows all about it.
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Thanks for the info. I don't plan taking them much longer. I'll figure something out.
 
Murrmurr said:
They only focus on adverse reactions because it's a given that some patients simply don't respond to treatment. And it isn't for the over-seers to figure out why. That's for medical researchers to figure out.

You'd think that reporting websites like MedWatch would be required to collect *did not respond to treatment* data, but they aren't. Treating physicians and hospitals are the only sources for that data and neither one is very good at it.
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I have actually reported things in the past, after a month or so I got nothing but corporate dribble. It's better to look out for myself.
 
Oldeagle66 said:
I have actually reported things in the past, after a month or so I got nothing but corporate dribble. It's better to look out for myself.
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I'm sorry you've had bad experiences. It is frustrating if they are knowingly using ineffective medicines.

You'd think they must have some sort of quality control, it feels so fraud-ish if some supplier is getting away with selling bad products to the VA. Maybe if you just ask the VA pharmacy for the manufacturer and batch of the 600mg pills and tell them it had less effect than a OTC 200mg pill and that you intend to email your congressperson about this sad state of affairs, that might send a chill to whoever is responsible.

I saw from an internet search that Congress had a hearing about faulty VA pharmaceutical procurement in 2012, so you never know, someone might eventually care about it (though the 2012 hearing was about a problem that had already been happening for two years, so I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for action).
 
Oldeagle66 said:
Now that I think back, just before I was released from the hospital and the nurse knew I had ibuprofen from the same hospital, he hinted that I should pickup my own.
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I'm so sorry for what you are going through. And what the...are they giving you at that hospital? The nurse knows something.
 
Oldeagle66 said:
Now that I think back, just before I was released from the hospital and the nurse knew I had ibuprofen from the same hospital, he hinted that I should pickup my own.
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That's appalling. We trust the medical profession to do their best for us and so often, they let us down. This incident needs to be made public.
 
I'm only having a few minor headaches now which are tolerable. Maybe one 200mg pill needed for a day. Well, I know one thing for sure. No more VA ibuprofen. They have given bad or the wrong before.
 
Many years ago, I worked for GSK... and in every department we had one manufacturing line which made only placebo's..., and equally one packing line which was set up to pack placebo packaging which looked almost exactly the same as the real thing..

Now they are supposed to be for clinical trial only.. but I'm wondering given the huge cost of drugs in the US, if somehow pharmacists are now able to buy Placebo at a much reduced price and pass it onto the customer


Placebo Manufacture - Upperton Pharma Solutions
 

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