Everyone knows that different drugs to different things. However, sometimes different drugs do the exact same things, using the exact same ingredients to cause the exact same reactions in the user’s body. When comparing the effects and effectiveness of prescription drugs and their generic counterparts, you could be highly surprised at what you find. With the same active ingredients monitored by the same Food and Drug Administration, consumers are guaranteed to get the same 200mg of ibuprofen from a pill, whether they’re buying highly expensive Advil or getting generic stuff from a corner store or grocer nearby. Why don’t more people go for generic drugs then?

They Spend Less; So Do You

Well for starters, companies which don’t have billions of dollars in reserve and millions to throw away anytime on a commercial just don’t have the advertising power of those big pharmaceutical businesses. You don’t see commercials for Welby ibuprofen (which is available at ALDIs stores all over the country). What you see are ads for Advil, Tylenol and Aleve, all of which contain the same active ingredients as their generic cousins. When looking to save money by switching to generic drugs, it’s important to actually know what you’re taking in the first place. Those three popular drugs use ibuprofen, acetaminophen and naproxen, specifically. Generic drug alternatives exist for each of these.

Always Read the Label

Understanding what you’re really putting into your body entails taking a long, hard look at the back of your medicine bottle. All ingredients should be listed plainly and clearly in the label, or on the box the bottle came in if full details aren’t on the label. That’s the first place you should start when trying to discern what it is you’re taking. All those clever marketing names deceitfully belie the same ingredients as the other, cheaper companies’ medicine. You won’t know that for yourself until you see it with your own eyes though. Once you know what you’re taking, you know what to look for elsewhere.

If you can find the same ingredients or something very close to the same ingredients in another, cheaper medication, there’s no reason you shouldn’t make the switch. It’s not as if drug companies can give people drugs that don’t do what they say they do, or skimp dosages and fill up pills with junk instead of the drugs which are supposed to be present. The Food and Drug Administration tests drugs from every company, large and small; if you see those pills on store shelves then they’ve been tested and approved by somebody, somewhere.

Consider Buying in Bulk

Why should you pay $20 for a bottle of 100 200mg ibuprofen tabs when you could pay half that price and get ten times as many pills by going with a generic brand? They’re the exact same drugs, doing the exact same things, only they don’t have the same cost. This applies to much more than just over the counter pain relievers too – lots of prescription drugs have generic alternatives which don’t cost nearly as much as the big name brand. When drugs are already so expensive, why wouldn’t you save money wherever you could? It’s not like going with generic food. The same substances must be in both medicines.

This principle applies to almost every drug there is. If you’re a diabetic, the insulin from one company really can’t be inferior to the insulin from another company. Why should you pay more for the stuff with a premium name then? For those battling a wicked infection from an injury, prescription antibiotics can prove quite costly. If you’re getting the same penicillin, amoxicillin or other antibiotic in the same dosage and amount, why would you pay ten times as much money for those drugs? There’s just no reason to throw money down the drain like this. Sick people especially cannot afford bad habits such as these.

Better Utilize Available Resources

If you don’t know the generic name for the drug you’re taking, you can look it up online and figure that out in just a few minutes. There’s no reason not to make the switch and there’s nothing preventing you from getting the knowledge to do so, either. Think of all the money you could save by going with less expensive generic drug alternatives. Think of all the things you could be doing with that money instead of struggling to pay for drugs which are already obviously overpriced. Your quality of life could actually improve since you won’t be sacrificing your health to eat, pay bills or keep up with rent or a mortgage.

Encourage your friends to make the switch as well. The only way to tell big drug companies that people aren’t willing to pay such exorbitant costs for their well being is to take your business somewhere else. Convincing a few others to do it just makes it that much more obvious people won’t pay that much for their medicine when the same quality ingredients can be had through literally almost any other vendor. If you’re taking an over the counter medication, or you’ve been prescribed a medicine by your doctor, the odds are very high a cheaper, generic alternative exists.