telophase | (no subject)

I'm lactose-intolerant (very much so!) and use a lot of Lact-Aid in daily life to deal with it. The brand-name stuff is expensive (Target: $12ish for 60 pills, other places $15ish), and the generic stuff carried by a lot of stores is less expensive (Target: $9ish for 60 pills) but still not great and has the additional problem of some brands come from a different factory and are made differently, and taste pretty nasty. Even with that faux vanilla flavor some of them like to boast of having. Regular Lact-Aid is pretty chalky to begin with; when you add a vaguely fishy taste to it...yeucch.

There's been a local shortage of Lact-Aid, and I can't find it anywhere (no idea why; haven't found any news about it), so I've been looking at generics again. Target generic: nasty. Kroger generic: nasty. Wal-Mart generic is just about exactly the same as Lact-Aid, but I hate going to Wal-Mart. Not for ethical reasons, but because of the parking lot. I've never come across a Wal-Mart with a well-designed parking lot.

And so I finally turned elsewhere. Toby's got a Costco card through his work, and he buys their generic Zyrtec ($18 for a 365 pill supply!), and thus I looked it up on their website and yes: Costco has a generic lactase pill. We dropped by Costco this weekend (entering the place at 5:55, and learned that they close the doors at 6, but don't kick people out until closer to 7), and bought a box.

Turns out: it doesn't taste nasty! Woo! And at $15 for 180 pills, significantly cheaper than anywhere else.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yeah, Costco is really great for stuff like that. I get their Kirkland advil equivalent, which is just ridiculously cheap compared to anything anywhere. Also antacid.

I'm wondering if their pharmacy department is mostly a loss leader?

That could be, yeah. Their pharmacy stuff certainly seems to be much cheaper compared to a lot of their other stuff.

It did feel weird to show up and wait in the long lines just to buy one box of pills! I had to fight to not grab a cart and go buy other stuff at the same time.

My only problem with it is that they appear to have specially reinforced the perforations between pouches to ensure that they will tear anywhere OTHER than on the perforated line.

I try to swallow the pills whole.

Costco's really good for anything generic pill-wise. I buy acid-blockers there at about a third of the price elsewhere. Though Target has pretty good prices too.

I was amazed at the sheer difference in price for the lactase, although I should have expected it since Toby's Zyrtec knockoff is so cheap. I assume the pharmaceuticals tend to be loss leaders: get people in there to buy their Zyrtec and they'll buy all sorts of other stuff so it's not a wasted trip.

Is there a performance difference with the generics versus the brand-name stuff? I'm staying with a friend who took some generic last week and found it made for a couple of very uncomfortable hours, stomach-wise. It passed off, but the cramping was fierce enough to make not taking anything look like a better option.

I have not noticed any performance difference between generic and name brand, but in general when using lactase pills for very dairy-heavy meals, I take the path of carpet-bombing it into nonexistence. Experiments over the past 20 years have shown me that 6 pills will take care of things like pizza, ice cream, and cheesy nachos for me, where only 2 or 4 will lead to gas and cramps, if not worse.

It also depends on what other things besides the dairy is in the meal--if I eat cheese by itself I need more pills than if I eat the same amount of cheese as part of a larger meal--and how much dairy I've eaten in the past 72 or so hours, as it seems to build up a little.

So with all of that, there's been no real difference in the generics for me. Possibly because I am taking more than I need at times. :D

What exactly do they call theirs? I mentioned this to Miles and he promptly started hunting for it on their website but has not been able to find it.

Kirkland Signature Fast Acting Lactase. I swear I found it at some point on their website last week, but can't find it now! Here's a link to them on Amazon, oddly enough. (http://www.amazon.com/Kirkland-Signature-Fast-Acting-Lactase/dp/B000VS4BF6) It cost us $14.99 for the box at Costco, rather than the $21.68 Amazon's asking.