I'm Fucking Pissed Off Big Time!
I'll start at the beginning. I have chronic pain on my right elbow from years of being a pitcher in baseball, throwing the discus (which, btw, I got second place in the city meet in 1970, it could have been first place but track officials refused to let me warm up because the team was late for the meet due to the bus breaking down), and shot put when I was in high school. But, I really screwed it up bad when I was involved in a horrific car crash where the paramedics said they've seen car crashes that weren't a severe as the one I was in where people died.
So, I see my doctor about 2-3 times a year and he prescribes hydrocodone, one pill four times daily. It used to be five a day but I thought that was too much so he reduced it to four.
About a couple of weeks ago, I started having a severe toothache and I called a dentist for an appointment, and she told me to take some hydrocodone if it keeps me up at night. I was taking about an extra one at 3-4 AM when I couldn't stand the pain in my tooth. Taking the extra pill made me run out of my prescription sooner than the expected thirty days. I called my doctor and told him I needed a prescription sooner than expected and explained my situation to him. He said that he would give me another prescription but that it was up to the dentist to give me the extra for nights.
I had the dentist appointment and it turns out I had a bad tooth infection. She gave me a prescription for penicillin and hydrocondone for night use. I don't have dental insurance so it was a bit pricey.
I had my regular prescription from my doctor filled on Dec. 19th. Today I took the prescription from the dentist to get filled. After waiting around for over an hour at the pharmacy, they finally called my name. When I was paying, I noticed they were only charging me for one item, the penicillin. When I asked about the hydrocodone, the lady behind the counter told me they weren't going to fill it. I asked why not and then, not waiting for an answer, I immediately asked to speak to the pharmacist.
The pharmacists comes over to speak to me and tells me that because I had a hydrocodone prescription filled already, that she was not going to fill the dentists' prescription. Wait, what? I explained my version of events that led to me having to fill two prescriptions for hydrocodone so soon. She said that she needed a note from my doctor telling her that. Wait, what?
I asked her if what I was doing was illegal. She said no, but, she added that it had the potential for abuse. So I asked her that the reason she was not filling it was because she thought I was abusing the hydrocodone? She didn't answer and just looked away. That is precisely when my blood started to boil.
Hey, I'm not a kid anymore, I'm going to be sixty years old in March. Please keep treating your customers like children. I know what I'm doing. She wasn't looking at me when I said those things. But then she said something else that pissed me off even more. She said that I was taking too much to begin with. Well SHIT! I told her I was taking five a day but it was my decision to reduce it to four.
I'm sorry, sir, you're going to have your doctor confirm what you just told me, otherwise I'm not going to fill it. Ever? ever.
It's not fucking illegal, but it's immoral because I could become a junkie, according to her. I walked away seething but not before I politely said "thank you." I wasn't going to give her the pleasure of seeing me pissed off.
Fuck! Even writing this isn't helping me cool down.
Who fucking made the pharmacist judge and jury? Why does she give a shit if I take more than the dose prescribed. And to top it off, she wouldn't give me the prescription back because I could take it to another pharmacy where they don't have the information.
I wrote this quickly and there's probably a ton of mistakes, but I'm pissed at the moment, so forgive my writing.
= new reply since forum marked as read
That pharmacist had no business doing that.
PERIOD.
I'm sorry, and I hope you can get this straightened out pronto.
There is a law involving such meds(let's call it that because to those of us who require this it IS a med not a "drug"
that will go through even stricter dispensing/limits/getting RX's in person much like Oxy now. Why is it they lump people in chronic pain with the thrill seekers who abuse such meds for fun? I am 63 and I am certainly not having fun. Every time you get a refill or a new script they look at you like a criminal. They don't see the pain in my eyes,my wheelchair,my gnarled hands. Instead they look at statistics,the youthful party crowd and doctor shoppers who get OUR meds for fun and profit. If a person buys six cartons of cigarettes at a time the store owner never blinks an eye. But WE are in a group of wanna be junkies even though we could be ninety two and on a respirator!!!!
