Butabarbital: uses, dosing, side effects & brands
Butabarbital is a medicine sold in the U.S. under 3 brand and generic names. Below: what the FDA label says, every product that contains it, what the pills look like, and its recall record.
Key facts
- Available as
- Tablet
- Sold as
- 3 products — Butabarbital Sodium, Butisol Sodium and Sodium Butabarbital
- Prescription?
- Prescription only
- Generic available?
- Yes
Every butabarbital product we track (3)
Same active ingredient — different manufacturer, form, price and FDA recall record. That last one is what our independent score measures.
| # | Drug | Rating | Type | Form | Generic? | Pharmacy pays | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 56/100 | Prescription | Tablet | No data | — | View → | |
| 2 | Not yet rated | Prescription | Tablet | No data | — | View → | |
| 3 | Not yet rated | Prescription | Tablet | No data | — | View → |
Butabarbital and breastfeeding
From LactMed, the US National Library of Medicine’s Drugs and Lactation Database — quoted, not rewritten.
Full LactMed record for butabarbital: levels in milk, effects in breastfed infants, and the drugs it would consider insteadBecause there is little published experience with butabarbital during breastfeeding, other agents may be preferred, especially while nursing a newborn or preterm infant. Monitor the infant for sedation, poor feeding and poor weight gain.
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, record revised February 15, 2023. LactMed states its information is not a substitute for professional judgement.
What people report to the FDA about butabarbital
The FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) collects reports from patients and clinicians. It holds 4 reports naming butabarbital, and the FDA flagged 75% of those reports as serious. The effects reported most often — leaving out reports about overdose, misuse or the condition being treated, which dominate the raw list for common medicines:
- acute kidney injury1 reports
- anal sphincter atony1 reports
- anion gap1 reports
- basedow^s disease1 reports
- coagulopathy1 reports
- coma1 reports
- crohn^s disease1 reports
- dental caries1 reports
Read these as a signal, not a rate. A report does not mean butabarbital caused the effect — anyone can file one, and many describe people taking several medicines for several conditions. Crucially there is no denominator: FAERS does not record how many people took the drug, so these counts cannot be turned into “X% of patients” — a bigger number often just means a more widely used or more talked-about drug. Duplicates exist, and publicity drives reporting. For what is actually established, read the FDA label section above.
Source: openFDA drug/event (FAERS), retrieved July 25, 2026.
Related calculators
Frequently asked questions
Can you take butabarbital with other medicines?
It depends on the medicine. We check it against the FDA labels rather than guessing: our interaction checker searches each drug's own label for the other and quotes what it says, naming the section it came from. Run butabarbital against whatever else you take — and remember that a label not naming a drug is not the same as that combination being safe.
What brand names is butabarbital sold under?
We track 3 butabarbital-containing products in the U.S.: Butabarbital Sodium, Butisol Sodium and Sodium Butabarbital. They are the same active ingredient; they differ in form, manufacturer, price and FDA recall record.
What forms does butabarbital come in?
Across the brands we track, butabarbital is currently marketed as tablet, per the FDA's National Drug Code Directory. Each form is dosed differently — follow the label for the exact product you were prescribed.
Is there a generic butabarbital?
Yes. Our catalog lists 2 generic butabarbital products alongside the brand versions. A generic has the same active ingredient and must meet the FDA's bioequivalence standard; it usually costs less. Ask your pharmacist which one your plan covers.
Cite this page
- APA
- pharmaranks. (2026, July 24). Butabarbital: uses, dosing, side effects & brands. https://pharmaranks.com/drugs/butabarbital
- MLA
- “Butabarbital: uses, dosing, side effects & brands.” pharmaranks, 24 July 2026, https://pharmaranks.com/drugs/butabarbital.
We summarise public FDA and NIH sources — for a clinical claim, cite the primary source we link to as well.
Sources: FDA openFDA drug label, National Drug Code Directory, and Enforcement (recall) database. This page reproduces public FDA data and is not medical advice. Dosing is set by your prescriber.
Read the full FDA label for butabarbital on DailyMed (NIH) ↗.