Question for Pharmacy Workers: WTF is going on with Pepcid Complete® & generics?!?

[Jack T. Chance]

Okay, now that I've secured a supply for myself for the time being, I'll reveal what I found yesterday.

The GIANT FOOD grocery store on Shady Grove Rd in Rockville, MD had 3 50-count bottles of Mint Pepcid Complete® yesterday. I ended up buying 2, leaving 1 for someone else. But if I felt I could have afforded 3 at $20 each, I would have bought all 3.

So, bottom line, GIANT FOOD stores in MD are the first places I've seen receive a shipment in MONTHS. If you have one near you, check there first.

Also, there seems to be a change to the product. It used to be that both Pepcid Complete® and all the generic versions were dark pink/light red colored pills, regardless of the flavor. Even the mint flavor was that color. Might explain the complaint I read on one of the blogs, where some customers got a mix of 2 flavors in one bottle. Also, they were large, smooth, disc-shaped pills.

Now, I started buying the generic versions years ago, because they were a good bit less expensive. It's been years since I bought the name brand. So I was quite surprised yesterday to discover that the Mint flavored Pepcid Complete® tablets I bought are now light green, and shaped more like a Breath Savers breath mint, smaller in size and with a "dimple" in the middle. Assuming that the Berry flavor is still dark pink/light red, that should make it much easier to make sure the entire bottle is all one flavor. It might also explain this current situation, as it certainly took a little time to switch over to producing the new style tablets.

Then again, this change could have been made awhile ago and I may have just been unaware of it.

[Food Lady]

Just wanted to pop in and say that when I was taking 2400mg of ibuprofen a day, the doctor prescribed Tagamet, which worked for me and has a generic.

[Jack T. Chance]

So, after buying a couple bottles at Giant, I went to the Wal*Mart in Germantown, MD (their only location in Montgomery County that I know of) and they had a BUNCH in stock, both the name brand, and their generic... but only in the Berry flavor.

Their price for a 50-count bottle of Pepcid Complete®? $15.48 or something like that (you know Wally World, with their weird prices! ) The generic is, of course, even cheaper, which is why I usually buy that instead... but they didn't have my flavor in-stock. At least I was able to get some at Giant Food.

...even if it was overpriced.

[Jack T. Chance]

Seen this back in-stock at a couple other Wal*Mart stores, both name brand and generic, so Wally World should definitely be your first stop if you're looking to pick some up... but the Berry flavor is still much more plentiful in Wal*Mart than the Mint flavor.

Still no sign of it turning back up at Target stores. Still just seeing empty shelves with no tags or anything.

[sarasquirrel]

Seen this back in-stock at a couple other Wal*Mart stores, both name brand and generic, so Wally World should definitely be your first stop if you're looking to pick some up... but the Berry flavor is still much more plentiful in Wal*Mart than the Mint flavor.

Still no sign of it turning back up at Target stores. Still just seeing empty shelves with no tags or anything.

at my SVC we've had to pull most labels for the name brand and generic. so it's most likely going to be like that in our other stores.

same thing for the tylenol products. dont get much of motrin in anymore, tylenol is slowly making itself back in.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

I don't know if they are the same company and am too lazy to Google at he moment, but there have been lots of recalls on pharmaceuticals in the last year. I work for grocery distributor handling HBC and General Merchandise in grocery stores.

Since I started about a year and a half ago there has been massive recalls of Tylenol pain relieving products, Tylenol and Motrin children's products, Tylenol cold and flu products, and most recently Mylanta products. The Tylenol childrin's, cold anf flu, and Mylanta stuff we completely removed from the system as it is still expected to be some time before we have it back. And some of it has already been out around a year.

We still have the generics though. And I cant tell you about the Pepcid Complete, as we never carried it. We do carry regular Pepcid though, and I had a hard time getting it a few weeks back, but that could have been the weather.

That's been happening with the Litter Box since early last year. I just finally started getting the Mylanta products back in during the last couple of weeks, as well as our private label versions (which were also out of stock along with the name brand.)

Children's Tylenol finally came back in several weeks ago but is now out of stock and has been for the last 3 weeks at least. Same with Children's Motrin liquid . . . I can get the private label version but not Motrin brand.

We've also been getting most of the Tylenol pain relievers back in starting before Christmas but a couple of them have since been discontinued.

And as far as the Pepcid Complete goes . . . it's still out of stock at our warehouse. Has been since last summer when we got the recall notice and I had to pull what I had behind the kiosk (they're both on the Shrink Card list) and send back.

It's caused quite a bit of headaches for our customers but all I can do at the store level is to keep ordering my empty tags and hope they come in each week.