I have been taking Clonazepam 1mg for a couple if years, with good efficacy. The pill I have been... taking is green, with the number 833 and sometimes the manufacturer's name "Teva" on the tablet. Recently, my pharmacist substituted a yellow tablet, manufactured by Actavis. It is labeled R34. My question: has anyone found a difference is the efficacy or side effects between the green Teva and yellow Actavis versions of clonazepam? I ask because I had one generic substituted for another generic I take of another drug (lamotrigine) and found the substitute did nothing for me and all my symptoms came back. I am more than a little gun-shy of taking a different manufacturer's version of a generic after this last experience. So if anyone has any thing to share with regards to the efficacy of Teva's version of clonazepam versus the Activas version, please let me know. Thanks!
Clonazepam - anyone noticed difference in efficacy /side effects of the Teva & Actavis versions?
Question posted by DJLevy on 9 July 2011
Last updated on 23 February 2022 by Althea88
47 Answers
Absolutely the green give me bad headaches it’s almost like a withdrawal symptom, the pharmacy was giving me the blue for a long time I had no problems at all.
Those Actavis pills are terrible. You can literally swallow the whole step and not feel a thanks. I told my pharmacist and he got a bunch of other complaints in my back to the blue one
Yes I have the same problem. The green pill worked fine and I was doing great. Went to pharmacy to get prescription and the pill was blue and different manufacturer. I have been having one panic attack after another. Pill is doing nothing. Went back to pharmacy and they said they were the same pill . They are not the same ! Pharmacy said the manufacturer who made the green pill sold out but when I was in emergency room they gave me the green pill. This blue pill is definitely different and is not helping at all.
The old formula is now back! I was able to request the following NDC: NDC 00093-0832-01 at CVS and they ordered them for me! I am so happy I have been in tears after picking them up today!!! I can feel them instantly working and I am incredibly grateful to Teva for bringing this formula back! I hope everyone finds them! Best of luck to all!!!
I too have been taking Clonazepam generic for at least 10 years for panic. Had to add fluoxetine after first 4 weeks because of depression suddenly. Then all was fine and I had a normal life (so thankful). Early 2019, started feeling lots of anxiety. Talked to doctor and they said I was probably needing more, but they won't give more. And won't give ANY Xanax to supplement. Then I went to read about generics on the Internet. Boy was I surprised when I read this thread. Then I went to look at the bottle - it was a different generic called Activas. CVS discontinued Teva because it stopped making it. In a brief interim they gave me Activas. So then I knew that it was the new generic - not working so well. Doctor didn't believe it - said they are all the same. After a few months thought that I had adjusted to Activas, but now looking back at the past year, I don't think it has relieved my anxiety. No panic attacks yet, but something is not the same as the Teva.
And now I read about how awful Accord is and I won't even try it. CVS/Target only carries Accord now. Walgreens will get Activas for me, but it takes several days for them to get it and then that 2 day window (on 90 days) gets lost in the waiting. And I am without for 2 or more days. This is so frustrating that I want to try and wean off of the drug. But then I will really be a mess. I am wondering if I increase the fluoxetine as I am withdrawing from the clonazepam, if that will help with the panic and anxiety. They are willing to give more of that. From what I am reading, Activas is probably the best of what's out there now.
I am having the same problem. I take 3 mg a day, MDD. I never miss a dose because I have epilepsy. But it’s not showing up in my saliva drug screen. I don’t understand what’s going on. I take a blue tablet with a V on it. It doesn’t seem to be working. My doctor is thinking I’m not taking it because it’s barely showing up on my drug screen. If anyone is having this problem I would like to hear about it. I don’t know what to say to my doctor other than ask the pharmacist to substitute out something else or to order something else I’ve taken the yellow ones before and they work much better. But I’ve had breakthroughs and the drug does not seem to be working. And like I said it’s not showing up in my labs. And I don’t miss a dose because I don’t wanna have a seizure.
Ask your pharmacist to order from Teva for you. If they wont. Find a smaller Pharmacy like i did. They have Accord clonazepam all forms but they order TEVA specifically for me. Without the dr writing it on the script. I get the R35 Actavis. They're bringing back their original formula. The .5 mg is already up on tevagenerics.com clonazepam. THE ORIGINAL. I keep emailing and calling. Hopefully they'll bring back the 2mg soon. I take 3 2mg a day. The original formula has water and providonek90 or something like that as inactive ingredients which makes it superior to brand klonopin.
Ask your pharmacist to order from Teva for you. If they wont. Find a smaller Pharmacy like i did. They have Accord clonazepam all forms but they order TEVA specifically for me. Without the dr writing it on the script. I get the R35 Actavis. They're bringing back their original formula. The .5 mg is already up on tevagenerics.com clonazepam. THE ORIGINAL. I keep emailing and calling. Hopefully they'll bring back the 2mg soon. I take 3 2mg a day. The original formula has water and providonek90 or something like that as inactive ingredients which makes it superior to brand klonopin.
Have your doctor order .5mg. Pink pills . See Teva Generics for an illustration.
Teva generics is now showing original .5 mg pill on it's web site.
Great news. I received the original yellow 0.5mg Teva pills in my refill today even though I asked for Actavis. The big change I need to make is to lower my dosage by half to see how I respond, since I have been taking Actavis for over a year now I hope this is the new Norm
I was told it is back but finding a pharmacy that is buying it from their wholesale list had been difficult. I'm told it's expensive so the pharmacies are sticking with actavis. What pharmacy did you receive your refill with the original formula from? Thank you!
I've spoken with Teva as well. They have confirmed they will be bringing back their original formulation bc of the high demand and complaint within several months. My son took clonazepam 1mg twice a day plus a PRN (teva and mylan were the only generic manufacturers that actually worked for him. Even name brand was like he wasnt taking anything) for a very long time and when we no longer could get it, he was switched to Ativan. HORRIBLE. Major depression and anxiety, very easily agitated etc. I have recently been informed about the ODT (orally disintegrating tablet) Teva which has the inactive/ingredients from the original formula. I will be picking up the ODTs today and fingers are crossed!
I just spoke to TEVA and they are going to bring back the old ones YAY! not sure when though they said.. we need to KEEP calling them to complain .. im almost out of my TEVA and im so so scared to take another kind but ill have no choice , I got SO lucky and for the past year i found stores that had left over TEVA. but lets keep on them, but good news its coming back!
I spoke with them again yesterday for like the 11th time since they discontinued the original formula. I was told by a guy about a month ago yo call back in about 3 to 4 weeks to get an update on the progress of the original being brought back. I called and spoke with a lady yesterday that informed me that they really do not have a set date for the release of the original formula but she told me she is thinking the end of the Summer (3 to 4 months from now). She told me that it is extremely rare that they would bring back a discontinued medication/product but they had SO many calls with complaints that they made the decision to bring it back. She told me that unfortunately the reason it takes so long to reintroduce it, is because by law they have to have it go through so many different things as though it were a brand new product. I am just grateful that they are bringing it back.
Activas has been the ONLY one I can tolerate and it took my body about 4 months to adjust to the change and it still doesn't work as well for me by a long shot. Can't wait for the original to hit the market again.
I actually got switched from Teva to Accord and Accord was horrible so I found out that Teva is Distributing activas brand Klonopin because they are basically the same thing when I got my prescription the bottle said manufacturer bye Actavas/Teva, so I called Teva and they said they are relaunching there original formula for clonazepam and it should be on shelves by mid to late summer and they just told me that today when I called them. I got my new prescription today of Teva / Actavis which are pretty much the same brand and they work so much better than Accord and they are just as good as Teva.
Good news and thanks for the update! I want my Teva back!
Not sure if I'll be if help! I'm on 2 and half mgs of clonazepam a day, it's an orangeish pinkish color, it has 1.0 on on side and clonazepam on other,I'm fine on them. I used to be on lamotrigine, however there is other meds I had to go on and the problems I was having weren't going away, if anything I was getting worse , then the drugstore suggested I try the beand name, turns out the meds started working. So just my opinion if you don't feel right you really should bring it up with your doctor and let him or her know you need brand name,I don't trust generic all that much and I hope brand name is an option for you because it sounds like that's what's wrong.. Well I hope I was of some help. Good luck, feel better soon.
I tried getting brand name for my clonazepam because I was switched to Accord and it was not working so ask the pharmacist if she could please order me brand and told her that I have Medicaid she said that Medicaid will not pay for any of it and it would be $155 for 30 tablets and I cannot afford that when I can get Actavis which is just as good as Teva and it's only $20 4 for the same prescription Actavis is working much better than Accord because Accord brand is crap basically placebo
From what I heard Teva is no longer making their own brand since they purchased the Actavis Company (which already manufactures Clonazepam). If you look up "Teva Clonazepam" it will take you to the Teva Generics website and there are only pictures of the Actavis pills. I had to switch over to the Actavis brand and noticed that I needed to take about 2x the amount vs. the Teva brand (in order to avoid Withdrawal symptoms). Since then, I have been fine on the Actavis brand. None of the pharmacies around me carry it, but my Rite Aid is able to special order it with no issue. Note, I needed to have my doctor write the script as "Actavis brand only", which seems strange. The pharmacies around me only carry Accord, which according to Accord's Website is "Manufactured By: Intas Pharmaceuticals Limited, Ahmedabad -380 009, India." I am not touching Accord.
I literally just switched to the activis R35 2mg pills this morning and I find it to work way better than Accord. I was on Accord Health Care for over a year and a half and they just got worse and worse over time. My first dose this morning of actavis seems to come on steady for 4 hours like it's supposed to. 4 hours isn't up so that's all i got ^_^
From experience: if you want to get the "Actavis" generic brand, your doctor should write "Actavis brand necessary". Otherwise, the Pharmacy will substitute with the cheap Accord (or similar). My local Walgreens and Rite Aid don't carry Actavis, but they can order if the script says "Actavis". My Walgreens even said "the computer decides the brand based on cost", if no brand is requested on the script. That is why Accord is the default in many cases.
Yeah I was calling around because everybody had Accord Health Care. I hit Super 1 Pharmacy and they didn't even stock to 2mg clonazepam. I asked if he would order Teva for me and he did. When it came it came with a pamphlet saying it was an Actavis. I talked to the Teva today they said their 1 mg pill is out two Distributors of their original formula with the 833 on the pill.
Every call matters request half milligram mg into ml mg original formula be brought back1 888-838-2872 option 3 then option 5. Good luck to all.
If you checked the Teva generic clonazepam website they're showing the original half milligram pill on the web page. I think we're making progress please everybody call.
The Actavis Klonopin is absolutely placebo. Somebody should do something about it someone is not regulating the drug industry correctly. It literally is as good as a sugar pill. I think everybody should complain to the pharmacy about the pill which reads R34. Or the half milligram of version of these clonazepam by Actavis that read r33. They are both completely fake pills. How have they been getting away with this
Activist is definitely not as good as Teva but it is better than Accord because Accord seems like a placebo to me when I had it for the month they gave it to me and then switch to activist and it seemed to work much better but I guess people are different and when we get used to one medication even the pharmaceutical manufacturer counts and can give different people different side effects or not work at all for some people like me Accord was not working at all as to where Actavis is working better than a cord but not as good as Teva
Activist is definitely not as good as Teva but it is better than Accord because Accord seems like a placebo to me when I had it for the month they gave it to me and then switch to activist and it seemed to work much better but I guess people are different and when we get used to one medication even the pharmaceutical manufacturer counts and can give different people different side effects or not work at all for some people like me Accord was not working at all as to where Actavis is working better than a cord but not as good as Teva
Yeah I was on Accord Health Care 2mg clonazepam for over a year-and-a-half it seemed like they got less and less effective. I started Actavis 2mg clonazepam this morning and it seems to be working great compared to Accord Health Care. The fillers can play a role and how available the clonazepam becomes for your body that's what my doctor says. So I'm trying Actavis at 6 mg a day and if it doesn't work well enough she wants to increase it to 8mg. Thinking about getting a waiver for Roche Klonopin and get my insurance to pay for it. When I see anhydrous in my inactive ingredients I get worried.
Several times in the eight years I have been taking this medication a pharmacy has substituted a coral pill made by Accord. Other colors are yellow and pink, and they seem right to dosage. The coral one by Accord does not and gives various side effects. I understand several pharmacies are only stocking Accord medications. My experience suggests finding another pharmacy.
Use a compound pharmacy, and if speaking directly with the pharmacist who made your medication could potentially be voiding your lives of such aggressive and dangerous withdrawal symptoms!
Related topics
Further information
- Clonazepam uses and safety info
- Clonazepam prescribing info & package insert (for Health Professionals)
- Side effects of Clonazepam (detailed)
Similar questions
Search for questions
Still looking for answers? Try searching for what you seek or ask your own question.
