The past week I haven't been feeling well. I really couldn't figure it out and went through the normal process of evaluation of "what did I change this week that's making me sick"? I finally got to the core of my issue and it was the medication I take that's compounded at a local pharmacy. Here's what happened.
As you may well know, doctor's don't like giving you your full 90 days supply of anything unless you've met their requirements of visiting them as requested. I had an appointment with this doctor in two weeks at this point. I was about to be out of this medication, and called my pharmacy which required a call to my doctor for a refill. After a week of zero response from the pharmacy, I called again and they said they would submit another refill request to my doctor. I also said I would call my doctor, at this point, I'm almost out of this medication.
I did reach my doctor's office and they said they would refill it. I thought great, thank you. Since this medication is compounded it's not covered by any prescription insurance at all. My medication arrived the next day and I really didn't think much of it, only that "they" authorized 30. I started taking my medication morning and night and for the next few days I had symptoms of something but hadn't realized it was side effects of the medication. What went wrong is the doctors office called in a refill for the typical way this med is prescribed and not for the way it's prescribed for me. I normally take 100mg in the morning and 100mg at night. These capsules were in 200mg. You can see what happened....yes, I was taking a capsule in the morning and at night, which meant I doubled my normal dose of this medication at 400mg, without realizing it until I was getting ill. Luckily, this medication wasn't anything serious, like heart medicine, otherwise, I may not be writing you this right now.
As much as I feel rather remiss at not noticing the dosage issue from the beginning, I thought this was also an opportunity to share my story in the event my experience can be helpful. It seems like you have to be your own doctor on everything and you can't always trust the staff in charge or the doctor will get it right. Errors like this can be very tragic and since the third cause of deaths in the US is due to physician malpractice/error, I suppose we all need to be more vigilant, even on the small things.
Web Diva said:
The past week I haven't been feeling well. I really couldn't figure it out and went through the normal process of evaluation of "what did I change this week that's making me sick"? I finally got to the core of my issue and it was the medication I take that's compounded at a local pharmacy. Here's what happened.
As you may well know, doctor's don't like giving you your full 90 days supply of anything unless you've met their requirements of visiting them as requested. I had an appointment with this doctor in two weeks at this point. I was about to be out of this medication, and called my pharmacy which required a call to my doctor for a refill. After a week of zero response from the pharmacy, I called again and they said they would submit another refill request to my doctor. I also said I would call my doctor, at this point, I'm almost out of this medication.
I did reach my doctor's office and they said they would refill it. I thought great, thank you. Since this medication is compounded it's not covered by any prescription insurance at all. My medication arrived the next day and I really didn't think much of it, only that "they" authorized 30. I started taking my medication morning and night and for the next few days I had symptoms of something but hadn't realized it was side effects of the medication. What went wrong is the doctors office called in a refill for the typical way this med is prescribed and not for the way it's prescribed for me. I normally take 100mg in the morning and 100mg at night. These capsules were in 200mg. You can see what happened....yes, I was taking a capsule in the morning and at night, which meant I doubled my normal dose of this medication at 400mg, without realizing it until I was getting ill. Luckily, this medication wasn't anything serious, like heart medicine, otherwise, I may not be writing you this right now.
As much as I feel rather remiss at not noticing the dosage issue from the beginning, I thought this was also an opportunity to share my story in the event my experience can be helpful. It seems like you have to be your own doctor on everything and you can't always trust the staff in charge or the doctor will get it right. Errors like this can be very tragic and since the third cause of deaths in the US is due to physician malpractice/error, I suppose we all need to be more vigilant, even on the small things.
It's such a shame to see instances of malpractice or neglect in the medical industry more and more these days, from my experience too. I find it's more often then not staff especially gets things wrong. It's not that good staff members don't exist, but I'm certainly experiencing less and less people who care and are qualified for their jobs. You shouldn't have to be paranoid that due to the medical offices mistake or neglect you're going to overdose on your prescribed medication because of an error on their part. But now you will always have to think about this and check, for the rest of your life. These kinds of mistakes could easily take the life of someone, like you said, on a more serious medication.
Alexis Bello said:
Web Diva said:
The past week I haven't been feeling well. I really couldn't figure it out and went through the normal process of evaluation of "what did I change this week that's making me sick"? I finally got to the core of my issue and it was the medication I take that's compounded at a local pharmacy. Here's what happened.
As you may well know, doctor's don't like giving you your full 90 days supply of anything unless you've met their requirements of visiting them as requested. I had an appointment with this doctor in two weeks at this point. I was about to be out of this medication, and called my pharmacy which required a call to my doctor for a refill. After a week of zero response from the pharmacy, I called again and they said they would submit another refill request to my doctor. I also said I would call my doctor, at this point, I'm almost out of this medication.
I did reach my doctor's office and they said they would refill it. I thought great, thank you. Since this medication is compounded it's not covered by any prescription insurance at all. My medication arrived the next day and I really didn't think much of it, only that "they" authorized 30. I started taking my medication morning and night and for the next few days I had symptoms of something but hadn't realized it was side effects of the medication. What went wrong is the doctors office called in a refill for the typical way this med is prescribed and not for the way it's prescribed for me. I normally take 100mg in the morning and 100mg at night. These capsules were in 200mg. You can see what happened....yes, I was taking a capsule in the morning and at night, which meant I doubled my normal dose of this medication at 400mg, without realizing it until I was getting ill. Luckily, this medication wasn't anything serious, like heart medicine, otherwise, I may not be writing you this right now.
As much as I feel rather remiss at not noticing the dosage issue from the beginning, I thought this was also an opportunity to share my story in the event my experience can be helpful. It seems like you have to be your own doctor on everything and you can't always trust the staff in charge or the doctor will get it right. Errors like this can be very tragic and since the third cause of deaths in the US is due to physician malpractice/error, I suppose we all need to be more vigilant, even on the small things.
It's such a shame to see instances of malpractice or neglect in the medical industry more and more these days, from my experience too. I find it's more often then not staff especially gets things wrong. It's not that good staff members don't exist, but I'm certainly experiencing less and less people who care and are qualified for their jobs. You shouldn't have to be paranoid that due to the medical offices mistake or neglect you're going to overdose on your prescribed medication because of an error on their part. But now you will always have to think about this and check, for the rest of your life. These kinds of mistakes could easily take the life of someone, like you said, on a more serious medication.
I know right, totally agree with you. Doctor's went through medical school to help people, and pharmacist went to pharmacy school to "safely" prescribe medicine, yet the people that are actually involved in your micro care are doctor's assistants and pharmacy assistants. The doctor's assistants call in the prescription and the pharmacy assistants pull the med's for the pharmacist to fill. Have you been to a pharmacy recently to see how there's always a line? What happened to me is the doctor's assistant called in my med the only way they knew how, rather than pulling my chart and seeing how it was compounding and dosaged for a specific way. I was pretty sick for a few days because of their negligence. My doctor was informed.