this probably isn’t what you wanted but I wanted you to know that I took advice from your website and contacted corporate at rite aid after the pharmacist, travis, Sandusky , ohio refused to refill my prescription for Percocet BECAUSE HE COULD. I filed a complaint with the board of pharmacy and the ADA. I got an apology and my prescription 2 days later. travis and a pharm tech yelled that they wouldn’t fill my prescription before I even got to the counter. I was humiliated. I dont even know if anyone was around I was so embarrassed I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I tried to make a joke about it and laughed so I wouldn’t look like the criminal they tried to imply that I was. my insurance company tried to intercede on my behalf and they gave me the prior authorization without the 7 day fill and a new prescription. they had me on a 3 way call trying to fix the mess that travis started. I was on pain managment for 9 years. I used the same pharmacy. my doctor office was raided by the dea and they took all his files. I was on 3 40mg oxycontin a day along with 3 Norco and 3 10mg flexeril a day plus a 100mcg fent patch every 3 days. I took my august prescriptions and tapered off of them at home alone and it was hell. I wanted to rip off my own face. I asked my PCP to help me and he wrote me a scrip for bentyl. I took the sept. prescriptions to the hospital and let them shred them. I kept one box of fent patches so I could kill myself when I couldn’t take the pain anymore. someone took them from me. I lasted until January and went to a pain managment 65 miles away. they made me take injections that damaged nerves and it took 7 months for them to heal. I went to the emergency room and they offered me a shot that I declined because I didn’t want them to think I was drug seeking. I am allowed 3 5mg percocets a day now. I hate the night time. the pain is so bad I cant sleep. if I take a 4th pill I have to decide what day I can only have 2 pills. I have a hard time even getting the flexeril to calm the muscle spasms that never stop and have pulled the lordotic curve from my spine. the pain never stops and I cant work I cant sleep. I am sorry that I have written a book. dr Gregory gerber was my pain managment doctor, he kept me working and now I cant even go to the grocery store. he did a stupid thing now all of us from 3 counties are being punished.
thank you for letting me rant
Filed under: General Problems
Judy Dunn. I hear you loud and clear. Yet when you use terms like, “uneducated Pharmacists” I think that is a tiny bit unfair or unreasonable I am not being rude but I hold the Pharmacists community in high regard I actually feel that they get the short end of the stick alot of times.
However, I have had at least THREE experiences with Pharmacists when I had to literally LITERALLY fight with them on the phone, until they would tire of my calling them out for unethical or abhorrent behaviors toward patient rights (according to my government and states statutes.
The ONE THING that is a strange and problematic law, is that a pharmacist can refuse to fill an Rx if they find it in anyway unsavory, and/or out of bounds with laws and regulations which are illegal in nature or to the patients detriment.
However, if you are within a healthy legal capacity when trying to fill a prescription and yet you are refused beyond those “best practices” boundaries…there are laws in the patients favor too, laws allowing you a Rx to be filled without any problems.
Problems are many but you have to fight for them. Know your rights!
Fortunately I found a primary doctor ( who is in her mid 30’s so she is not retiring anytime soon) but she stated she could not keep me on 100 mg morphine a day plus breakthrough meds. So I allowed a very slow taper and now on about 120 mme a day and doing OK..I have worked to find other things to help with the pain. The problem is doctors taper people off to fast causing their pain to increase greatly and just make a person worse. There is no excuse for any patient to have to go though withdrawals.
This is disgusting on so many levels.
This hit me hard, especially the part about keeping a certain amount of medicine for withdrawal… I have multiple plans in place… I’ve gotten closer than I’d like to admit.
I went from
Duragesic 300mcg/hr q48h
Actiq 1400mcg 4x/day
Methadone 15mg 3x/day
Oxymorphone 20mg q6h
I now get ibuprofen 400mg q4h
Holy smokes. That is some combination I am currently in pain management and legally disabled but prior to this I was a Clinical Practitioner. I have ALWAYS BEEN an advocate for pain mngmt patients too, (I grew up with a mother suffering from fibromyalgia, way back when Drs thought of Fibromyalgia as some “fake” condition). So I had to watch alot of suffering. Then had to subsequently explain and argue to people the benefits of her being put on methadone and how this medication gave me my mother back
Back to that combination of medicine. Was this a combination that you took daily, or was it meant to be a list of “I tried this, then that” ?
I am just curious.and in no way to make it clear is my question looking down upon.
So sorry to hear all that you went through, all because of an over
eager idiot pharmacy tech. The world we live in is now filled with
Uneducated Doctors and Pharmacists who spend too much time
Worrying about their jobs and more time treating their patients like
Addicts. The sad part is most of these people have known their
Patients for a very long time, but that doesn’t seem to matter.
Unfortunately we can complain but it goes in one ear and out the
Other. They don’t listen because they don’t care. This isn’t about
Drugs, it’s about money, money they will get from the lawsuits
Against the drug company’s.
If they really wanted to do something they would be going after the
Cartels, Pushers and the drug dealers, but nothing is being done
About them.
The opioid crisis is heroin and fentanyl, not pain medication being used
By Chronic Pain Patients.
Once again, sorry for your pain, hope you find someone, some
Compassionate Doctor who is not a coward like the rest, who can give you some relief from all your pain. Especially since the CDC stated
That pain patients should not be deprived of their medication.
Good Luck
Actually pharmacist are required to follow guidelines for dispensing anything above a certain morphine equivalent dose. Along with DEA regulations. So it’s not about the money, it’s about what the law entails them what they can and can’t dispense. Hence why they are required obtain diagnosis codes as well