Synthetic Caffeine (Vivarin), Generic Ibuprofen

By the way, the first thing that convinced me that synthetic drugs might be different from the drugs in the original plants that inspired them, was when I used to use Vivarin. Something about Vivarin is so much stronger than ordinary caffeine, and so different, that even though the label says 'This contains as much caffeine as two cups of coffee,' it feels to me more like seventeen cups of coffee. I drink large amounts of coffee sometimes, and no matter how much I drink, it has no resemblance to the way I feel when I use Vivarin. Back when I was using Vivarin, I used to shatter the pill into tiny fragments, and eat only a fragment at a time.

(I don't use Vivarin anymore at all. It caused terrible drug interactions and side effects during the ephedra contamination incident, where I got several different herbal oils on many of my belongings. As in, life-threatening problems. I was using it partly because I have chronic fatigue. The chronic fatigue was partly caused by St. John's Wort, which causes sleepiness, but also, it was environmental illness caused by something in this house - the mold, which has been here for several years now. For a long time, I knew about black mold, but it was only in the past few months that I started to think mold might be causing my health problems. I didn't believe it was able to put so much of a fume into the air. So anyway, the tiredness from the mold is one reason I was using Vivarin.)

I also notice that I can't use the name brand ibuprofen pills - I wake up with my arms trembling the next morning - I get the shakes. The name brand version also gives me a really weird feeling in my head. But I can tolerate the generic version of ibuprofen. There is something different about those two pills, but I don't know what it is.

It could be reagents in excess, or it could be isomers. Isomers are different versions of the same molecule, sometimes a mirror image of a molecule that does something different when it gets in the body. I don't know what causes it with ibuprofen.