Question for a friend about an adderall brand

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I have a friend whose son is on 20mg instant release adderall. He's had good results with it and his parents are happy with it overall. The problem came about last month when the pharmacy switched it's brand to Teva instead of I believe Cor. Teva 20mg is orange, Cor is pink. That should be the only difference because they are all generics, but she said she noticed a difference and when asked, her son did too. They weren't as effective.

She asked me to look it up because I like to research every med I've ever taken or my children take and we tried adderall before but my son couldn't take it, but I did research it then. I researched this thing for her too. I've read that some people find that Teva doesn't work as well although it is supposed to have the same amount of active ingredient as the rest. I looked online and read some reports from people who take it, on ADHD forums and things like that and also on harm reduction forums for drug users. The consensus is that Teva sucks and doesn't work, and it also doesn't get recreational users very high. This was first reported over a year ago and it seems that it hasn't been fixed yet.

I wanted to ask here if anybody's child is on adderall and if you have tried the Teva brand and if you like it or noticed a difference. I suggested she switch him to Vyvanse cause that worked great for my son, but everybody reacts differently and since they are happy with it, they will keep it. They may switch pharmacies next month because this is the second month they got that brand of it.

Thoughts, experiences?

I was on adderal for a while and found that we didn't get along. It was bad for me. However with it I had the orange ones and always had that. I would think that their should not be a difference in the meds because they are made with the same specifications. However I could be wrong.

There are more than one orange 20 mg. I can't remember the brands but the brand name is orange I believe, as well as the Teva generic.

Teva had problems with other drugs of theirs from what I saw online. Many of them either don't work at all or just not as well. I don't know if it's a filler that causes the problem or they are somehow getting by with putting less active ingredient in, or if some chemical reaction with other ingredients that only they use causes their drugs to not work as well, but I've read that they had trouble with several different drugs besides adderall. They are supposed to all have the same active ingredient but they can use different fillers that are compatible.

It's weird: Advil works better for me than Ibuprofen--even though Advil is the brand name and Ibuprofen is the generic name of Advil.

I'm wondering if there's a bias, in me, for brand names?

That would weird, indeed. I'm not into brand name clothes, in particular.

Brand name drugs have the original patent and recipe. Generic drugs have use of the active ingredient that was patented as well but they do not have the right to exactly copy the recipe for the name brand drug. This may mean using different fillers, and different dyes etc to the drug, so while you get the same amount of the same active ingredient that is made in the same way that the one put in the brand name drug is, the rest of it isn't the same. Some people react differently to fillers and other ingredients in a drug. That may be what happened with you. While it's the same active ingredient, in the same amount that is in generic drugs as the name brand, it's not the same pill.

An analogy would be Italian food. A whole lot of pasta dishes have the same main ingredients in them. Beef, pasta, cheese, tomatos, garlic, spices. When you change the shape and consistancy of the pasta and the type of cheese and add more or less of the tomatoes, garlic and spices, it's a whole different dish, even though it's basically the same and the main ingredients are the same. Drugs are like pasta dishes. The original patent holding name brand drug is made with grandma's recipe. The rest of the drugs are made with the main ingredients but changed some to fit the taste or budget or available ingredients for each daughter and granddaughter who cooks it. Only grandma's is grandma's, no matter if it's almost exactly the same, grandma bought her olive oil from a small company in Italy by mail, used fresh garlic and not jarred, used fresh herbs she grew herself, and only bought the freshest mozzerella she could find, still wet. No matter what you try to do to replicate it, without that particular olive oil from that little company in Italy, it's not going to taste exactly the same cause grandmas oil had a distinctive flavor that some could taste and some couldn't. Some people won't notice the difference when Aunt Angelina cooks it with stuff from Walmart, but others will. It's the same, but it's not. Thats how it is with drugs. You can just taste the difference in grandma's olive oil, that's all.

That makes sense. My mouth is watering for that pasta now!