Do you regularly buy medicines? Do you prefer generics or branded?

I raised this question as I am a regular buyer of maintenance drugs for my mother. It’s almost a year now that I’ve been consistently supplying her need for medication, specifically for her hypertension problems. Every month, we spend around 3 to 4,000 pesos for her medicines. Her being a senior citizen card holder helped us a lot in her medicinal purchases as she’s entitled to 20% discount.

Her doctor, a heart expert, advised her not to take generic drugs as the formulation or dosage may not be the same with the branded ones and may risk her condition. This fact we actually experienced true when one time, we bought her a generic drug because of the unavailability of the prescribed ones and she experienced health problems afterwards. It took us days before her condition normalized again.

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