I have suffered panic attacks in busy situations and difficulties breathing during the last couple of weeks, reactions that are completely new to my experience, and it has cost me a lot of distress and money as I had business in NYC last week, and my work sometimes puts me into crowded situations, for which I have been unable to excel over the past few days.

I’ve never had these kind of experiences before and I am convinced that it is due to my change to generic Concerta.

I will be visiting my pharmacy on Monday to demand they replace my medication with the real Concerta. And I am a customer who doesn’t care about the cost difference, it is incidental to the difficulties caused to me by the generic substitute.

I am shocked that a pharmacist can just substitute this medication without indication and without asking permission from the person who is purchasing it/taking it/relying on it.

The Canadian Health System is failing to a huge degree, something I have experienced for a while and has caused me to seek private medical treatments at Med Can in Toronto (I highly recommend them. Who can blame one for doing that when our public system is so poor?), and entirely my expense.

Now, the drug administration system, even when you pay for it yourself, is falling into a pathetic economy-first, no thoughts to the patient/client, even when they are paying for it fully?

I think this blind-switch process is disgusting and should be illegal. There should definitely be mandatory acknowledgement by the pharmacist to the patient/client that they have changed your medication. I never would have imagined to have such strong negative consequences of such a change, but if I had been asked or told about the change, at least I would not feel completly ignored by this sad and unfortunate system. I feel like the system has caused me undue hardship, at my expense, without my consent, and I had no control over it because I was not even informed.

I am embarrassed and ashamed of the Canadian Medical System in general. It is just getting worse and worse. I am not talking about lack of funding, I am talking about lack of diligence, poor management, and bad decisions.

My son is 10 and has been on Concerta for a year now. Just the last couple weeks it hasn’t seemed to be working. I have questioned him several times as to whether he has taken it or not—we can almost always tell when he hasn’t! So I have been watching him take it and his behavior has still been an issue. We have talked to the counselor about going back to the doctor to see about increasing his dosage. Thankfully, it dawned on me that the last time I filled his prescription, it was the generic.

Reading this blog confirmed what I was suspecting. As of right now, I would agree that the generic is not working like the concerta, at least for my son. I am so thankful I came upon your blog…it may have saved a lot of headaches for my son and for me!

God Bless!

thank you for reminding me – I will look into it.

Regardless, that does not change anything but it helps for the time being

thank you =-)

but. just to say though… after since my personal first posts about this frustration, it was based mostly from the drug plan coming from “Ontario Works” , which stopped covering the name brand for Ritalin SR and only covered Generic. ( They never covered name brand Concerta ever ) .

BUT – months and months after… we have noticed all of a sudden………. at THIS MOMENT

Ontario Works DOES cover again Ritalin SR and probably other drug plans that you may have used before that changed before with this generic stuff came into place…

BUT , for the Concerta … now – because my Girlfriend takes CONCERTA … she went again with her drug plan from her temporary Ontario Works plan between her job recently, and they NOW tell her .. they STILL do not cover the name brand Concerta , HOWEVER ..

the pharmacies , NOW seem .. as they told her., they can give her the name brand with the drug plan , BUT since it is not fully covered, they will now take the DIFFERENCE out of the price of the GENERIC brand, and then you will just have to pay the difference between the two.

that is still better than paying the full amount of the name brand instead of just paying full for name or free for generic . right

At least it is SOMETHING but I would assume if this is for Ontario Works, it has to be something done or decided throughout other regular drug plans aswell. but I have not info for that from my experience so either Dr. Kenny knows something or you guys can continue asking the pharmacies with your current plans and see what they tell you now. … =S

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Quick Side Note:

My girl had to get the generic this month only because we were broke, but we knew we could get it for free though so thats the only reason we had no choice but only for this month. I just hope she can get through this just one month on Generic until getting back to the name brand once she starts her new job and we have the cash to spend for it , ; ( without the crazy side effects … ) – hoping it will in the least just be as effective as a large 54mg Ritalin SR .. more or less

Iknow its only one month, but even one week can do a lot . so lets hope for the best.

aside from that, I am sorry for most all you others out there having to get Generic not my choice for your kids and otherwise…

Generic should be taken with this medication. My Doctor even told me with “anti-depressants” aswell, as much as I always from day one never agreed with those medicines, it is EVEN WORSE and they suprisingly STOPPED the generic almost right away after they heard even worse horror stories from it… as hard as that is to believe… after knowing about tthis stimulant med too ..

anyway I hope this helps…. continue fighting friends

good luck ! fight will continue.

P.S personally, if you can, do whatever possible to keep your kids on the real name brand of the meds, it is already difficult as it is to keep this condition controlled even with stimulants, there should NOT ever be a reason to make even worse having to mess with this generic crap. we all have enough in our lives to worry about. this should NOT be something to interfere. that is last 2 cents though.

think about it and good luck ! =-)