Over the counter medicine (The biggest con on earth)

waspy88

waspy88

waspy88

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From my experiences this winter, I had a couple of colds and a bit of fever..

I have noticed this sly and horrendous industry preying on the ignorance of the common public. I think people should be aware of their medicine consumption..

First of all, your average cold medicine contains the below:-

Paracetamol (300mg - 1000mg)
phenylephrine HCL (Decongesant)
Caffine
Vitamin C (in sachet stuff usually)

Now.. here comes the scam, Lemsip Max Strength and other popular brands sell you all the above ingredients at a premium that is very unreasonable. Considering all medicine is, are a bunch of synthetic molecules made by machines, you will NOT get better quality from a more expensive product.

The most shocking item first of all was this little beauty. Lemsip Max Strength cold tablets:-

Costing around £4.00

"Each red and yellow Day capsule contains the active ingredients paracetamol 500mg and phenylephrine hydrochloride 6.1mg and caffeine 25mg"

Lloyds' own costs £0.99p with the same ingredients, I think there is 0.1mg less of Phenylephrine, and the paracetamol content was 300mg per capsule. Since you can buy 24 x paracetamol for £0.50 at sainsburys (500mg) it is the cheapest ingredient. As for the rest.. what are people paying for? Do they think because it says max on it, its better.. ?

There is even more ******** in pharmacies. I was sad enough to look at Lloyds' other stuff, they re-branded the EXACT same flu tablets "decongestant" and charged £1.99 for it! cheeky *******. On the front of the cover you can see a man with red sinuses.. that is the only difference.

Beechams / Sudafed are all people who do exactly the same thing. I am amazed at how little regulation there is the market.

As most of you know the cold is a none curable affliction. You can treat the symptoms but not the actual cold. The scary part of this whole thing is, that their adverts show people getting up after drinking lemsip and running to work to avoid demotion.

So in reality what most people are doing when treating a cold is, drinking watered down paracetamol water with caffine. Phenylephrine is not an effective decongensant according to a few medical journals on the web, and I am sure your doctor will agree too. Pseudoephedrine (used in meth amphetamine production) is the better decongesant. But its been given a bad rap because of druggies in the US home brewing it. So there really is no point in any of those cold drugs.. you could drink some warm water, take a 4ps worth of paracetamol (cheaper if prescribed) and chilax..

Bah.. it infuriated me to read the the back of the packets. If any of you have had an experience or seen bad instances of this, please do tell.

Fully star out swearies
 
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pretty sure one or two stars in swearies won't do. Also, if you don't like them, don't use them.

I've never had any first hand experience to say that over the counter medicine works anyway.
 
Known about this for years, it's not a matter of regulation it's about people's perception of "quality". How many people would rather have Tesco or Asda's own rather than a main brand that advertises? That goes for many, many products.

Look at Lidl and other retailers, a lot of the time it's identical produce but people turn their noses up at it as it's not a "quality brand".
 
Good post really. My mother has been telling me all this for ages. Id never pay for Lemsip or anything like that. Just some paracetamols and lots of water do!
 
Worse than that, Tesco have a whole line of foods and suchlike under their two-stripe Value brand which contain the same ingredients as other branded items but for much less!!

It's terrible I tells ya!
 
I've often wondered if I should pay more for the brand named medicines, glad I stuck to the value brands now. :D
 
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Well, well done. You realised something I think every intelligent person already knows.

This is why sane people buy 8p Paracetamol instead of £5723235 branded.

This is the first time on these forums I've wanted to use Jesus.jpg.

EDIT - don't forget we're a capitalist/'brand'-conscious society. Why do people wear £75+ t-shirts when it's the "same" material as a 50p Matalan one? As people can, and people do.
 
I thought we all knew that.

I always buy the shop brand (boots, Tesco) aspirin and paracetamol, and never branded ones, you might be able to tell the difference between the label but i guarantee you that your cells don't.
 
Everyone should know this. Once the patents run out on the original drugs, anyone can make and distribute their own.

The originals are always more expensive because they're the only ones available at the time and the prices don't drop once the patent ends. People still believe the more money you pay, the better it works but it's all the same ingredients.
 
What you posted in the OP is common knowledge and not a con. If you're stupid enough to pay through the nose for the branded items then you deserve to be ripped off.

I'd have thought the biggest con is the fact that we in England are forced to pay to have prescriptions filled, when those in Wales and Scotland get them filled for free.
 
Congratulations. You have finally worked out that branded products cost far more than their unbranded counterparts.
I'm just not sure why it's taken 27 years for the penny to drop though.
 
Also, so many drugs have just come off patent in the last year with so few new drugs being marketed, expect to see a lot more cheap meds around :)
 
asim18 said:
I've never used any over the counter cold/flu remedies. I just skip a day or two of college and it's sorted. :)
Click to expand...

Cold? What's that? Haven't had one in years....

The grand total of medication I take is about 4 (free) paracetamol a year.:p
 
emailiscrap said:
Congratulations. You have finally worked out that branded products cost far more than their unbranded counterparts.
I'm just not sure why it's taken 27 years for the penny to drop though.
Click to expand...

Stop being a pube

his post was well enough written and it might make some people realise whats what.
 
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