Pharmacist prescribed wrong dosage

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Hi, I have epilepsy and my pharmacist gave me 200mg instead of my usual 500mg on my repeat prescription. I have been feeling really ill lately, like I'm going to have a seizure and didn't realise until I looked at my medication that I have been taking less than my normal dosage. Am I being unreasonable to complain? I think I should seek medical attention too.

I’m on epilepsy medication and the tablets I take can come in a variety of strengths: 25mg, 100mg, 200mg and 400mg and I have used all of them over the last 20 years.

As the tablets increase in strength they also increase in size so visually it work be obvious if I’d been prescribed different strengths to normal. I don’t know if this is the case with epilim tablets though?

However, the strength of medications are written on the box and all over the blister packaging so I cannot fathom how you didn’t realise they weren’t your usual 500mg tablets?

I know people say it should be fine to have blind trust in pharmacists but you should always check what medications they give you.

They actually haven’t done anything wrong as they have given you the medication prescribed and the right tablets to give you the dose you need: 300mg + 200mg = 500mg.

I genuinely don’t see how you could not have realised?

As has been said though, you don’t even seem to know what dose you should be on which is pretty horrifying and extremely dangerous and irresponsible on your part.

When I am give. A prescription for, say, 100mg of something and it is out of stock, pharmacist will not provide, say, x2 50g instead because that was not what was described.

Is there a reason for this?

Is there a reason for this?
The reason was given a few responses ago. By a pharmacist.

This is not a dispensing error, you haven’t understood your prescription correctly

Looks like the OP isn't coming back. But the worrying thing is that somewhere along the way it looks like communications failed and they may never have been taking the right dose.

If this incident has an up-side it's that hopefully they will speak to their GP sooner rather than later and get a better understanding of what medication they should be taking daily.

A few weeks ago I noticed I was dispensed 10 mg amitriptyline tabs and I was supposed to receive 100 mg ones! Pharmacist owned up to her mistake but really?!

Well amitriptyline doesn’t even come in 100mg tablets so are you sure there was a mistake?

“Q. A patient has presented a non-repeatable prescription for '28 x 5mg tablets'. The 5mg strength is unavailable as it is in short supply; however, I do have '56 x 2.5mg tablets' in stock. As this is the same amount of drug i.e. 140mg which can be administered at the prescribed dose by doubling the number of tablets; can I dispense 56 x 2.5mg tablets against this prescription instead?

No. It is part of the Terms of Service that pharmacy contractors must, with reasonable promptness, “provide drugs so ordered” once a prescription has been presented. “Drugs” includes medicines e.g. the tablets. In this scenario, the patient has presented a non-repeatable prescription for 28 x 5mg tablets and therefore supplying 56 x 2.5mg tablets would not be providing the drugs “so ordered”.
If you intend to dispense 56 x 2.5mg tablets then the prescription would need to be amended or a new prescription would need to be issued by the prescriber at the prescriber’s discretion, It would also be essential to ensure the patient understands the different dosage to be taken if there were an amendment to their prescription.”

Just copied this from the PSNC website. Therefore, for different strengths to be issued, a new prescription will have to be written, maybe this happened, (due to shortage of oriniginal strength), so no mistake made.

Thanks, petal - appreciated. Didn't know of the pharmacist was being officious, as it were, or there was a reason!

My MIL is always getting different dosages with her many mess! However, they are delivered in blister packs.
What no one seems to have noticed is that despite the OP allegedly taking a lower dose of epilepsy medication, they have not had a seizure! That sounds like a result to me, and she should hot-foot it back to the GP to point up this out.

I also think she's not being completely truthful. She originally said she was given 200ml tabs, then 200 and 300. Also, in all honesty, would mess for epilepsy have such a woolly dosage written on, 'take 1 or 2'? Surely the dose is very specific as to how many to take and when to take them?

Petal it's likely the pharmacist has had the prescription amended to avoid the patient with epilepsy going without medication.

EKGEMS - A few weeks ago I noticed I was dispensed 10 mg amitriptyline tabs and I was supposed to receive 100 mg ones! Pharmacist owned up to her mistake but really?

So you checked the medication you received? Which is precisely what you're supposed to do...

EKGEMS - A few weeks ago I noticed I was dispensed 10 mg amitriptyline tabs and I was supposed to receive 100 mg ones! Pharmacist owned up to her mistake but really?
The strongest Amitriptyline are 50mg, so what were you taking before?

I have the same set up with thyroxine. Take one of each strength to make up my dose

My husband takes warfarin and the dosages can vary either way over time. Sometimes he has to take a 5, a 3 and a 1, and then have to chop a 1 in half. I suppose he could take 3 x 3 and cut a 1 in half, but it depends how many of each he's got.

The success of the whole thing depends on him knowing how much he should be taking, and then reading the labels on the boxes.
I thought everybody did.

Errors are uncommon but they do happen, that's why the advice is always to check.

I once had a "one every three days" prescription. Pharmacy labelled it one three times a day. The doctor had explained to me it was one every three days so I called to query it with the pharmacy and they said they would log it as an error. Presumably those error figures are checked and something done if there are many. Its unreasonable to expect no human error at all. If someone is elderly and easily confused they shouldn't be taking medication unsupervised anyway.

How are you feeling OP? Have you got the correct dose now?

I'm not sure how long you were on a lower one but your GP might recommend titalating the dose upwards if it was a while.

I had similar when I needed 4mg folic acid and the pharmacist gave me 400mcg. I noticed immediately and mentioned it to her but she was adamant that 4mg was exactly the same as 400mcg. Even when I showed her on my phone that 4mg was 4000mcg, not 400mcg she just shook her head and smiled at me 'no, dear, that website is wrong'. I had to report this to the company HQ in case she was doing this with more serious medication which would be very worrying. Always double check the medicine you are given!

Epilem chrono 500 may have been temp out of stock up wide.

Cheerfulcharlie whilst youre correct about 4000mcg=4mg, folic acid only comes as 400mcg or 5mg tablets, what dose were you supposed to have?

I guess you could have had the 5mg/5ml liquid or taken 10 400mcg tablets but I can understand the pharmacist's thinking.