To have walked out of chemist without prescription because of "consultant pharmicist" wouldn't fill DS's prescription?

[mm22bys]

I went to a branch of well-known pharmacists today to fill a repeat prescription for DS2 - he's been on the drug for two months.

He is quite young to be on this medication, but it was prescribed by a consultant pediatrician at a major London teaching hospital, so I trust they know what they are doing.

The "consultant pharmacist" started giving me a hard time about how I actually give it to him - it is a single tablet once a day, and he wanted to change it to liquid form. I explained that I prefer the tablet because based on past experience with liquid antibiotics and pain medication, I never know how much he actually gets (spills out of mouth etc).

He then wanted to know if I crush the tablet or if I give it to him whole, mixed in cereal. I do both, depending on what sort of mood I'm in .

He then said he would have to ring the manufacturer to find out best way of giving it to him.

I waited for 15 minutes, and he got back to me and told me that they would have to ring down to the pharmacy at the manufacturer to find out.

At that point I asked for the prescription back and told him I would go somewhere else.

I went to local pharmacy and got it straight away, no questions asked.

I have since rung the manufacturer myself, and they just take voicemails, but have looked it up on the internet and found out you can crush it.

Was I unreasonable to have walked out of the pharmacy, without waiting for further information?

Blimey SueW that is one alert pharmacist!

Mind you, I had an idiot GP once, many years ago. I took the prescription he gave me to the chemists, handed it in, out came the pharmacist clutching his head - 'sorry but what's actually wrong with you, because this is a really strange prescription...' I explained, and the pharmacist gave me the things. I asked if it was safe to take the medicines together and he suggested I take one and leave an hour before taking the others (he clearly wanted to tell me to go back and twat the doctor but didn't feel it was his job to...). Anyway, I dumped one of the meds after 2 days because it was making me groggy. About a year or so later, had a nasty bout of tonsilitis, went to GP knowing that it needed a week's worth of a basic antibiotic and reckoning he probably couldn't f* that up. Pharmacist comes out clutching his head - ' did your doctor tell you how many times a day to take this medicine?' We decided between us that the dose was probably 4 pills a day.
About a year later I got a letter from the medical centre to say that the GP in question had been struck off. How I laughed. And how glad I was that, with my grandad having been a pharmacist, I generally know how to cope with minor ailments anyway.

YABU

Peachy - just for future info you can get paracetomol as a suppository - really useful for when they just won't take anything or are sicky with a temp on top - you can buy it overthe counter but its really expensive. On the continent anal suppositoriesare much more often used..

meltlets? Dissolve in mouth for over 6s

No I don't think you were at all.

A few times this has happened to me, where the pharmacist has questioned what the dr has prescribed. And Yes it is very annoying. I just take it to a different one.

Message withdrawn

So you think it's fine that a pharmacist is their job properly, but you know better? Who would you sue the Dr or the pharmacist if it was wrong, because it would be the pharmacist that takes the flack.

I don't know better, but I would hope the doctor does tbh

Not really much to do with the op - just pharmasists. I was once on some tablets that O had to take to stop my periods, as my body had got used to the pill, and I was 'on' for months. I went to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription for these ablets, which Id been taking for about 6 weeks, and upon handing them to me, the pharmasist asked me, loudly, in a pharmacy full of people (the pharmacy is on our high street, in a market town, on market day.....FULL) if I was taking them to stop my periods, and how much I weighed!! Im all for them checking whether the medicine is right for people, or being taken to one side and asked quietly, but to ask such personal questions, loudly, in a pharmacy full of quiet old people, I was v

When I've had questions over medications a very helpful (young and new to job I suspect) pharmacist rang me back at home later with the answers I needed. Once he even took the trouble to look up my number on the internet to ring me about something that had occured to him later. Probably a bit shocking for some people, but I was glad he'd made the effort.

For anybody interested - I often give DS2 paracetamol by suppository (sounds terrible, I've given maybe 10 in 18m) as he won't take it orally without a fight. If DH is working away, and I've got no-one to help me, then I give him a suppository. He had really bad reflux up until 12 months, so oral pain meds didn't work as he threw them up. No GP would prescribe them until I'd already had them prescribed by a consultant though.

Now that is a reason to complain about a pharmacist mumzy. Disgraceful thing to do.

It was a female too - I doubt she'd have wanted me to quiz her about her weight, and menstrual cycles in bloody public!!!

I don't think you were being unreasonable. If the pharmacist wanted to be a pedantic git, he could at least have made the effort to be an efficient pedantic git.

many times, pharmacists know more about medications than doctors do!!

I don't think the pharmacist was being unreasonable to want to make 100% sure that the medication was suitable and taken in a suitable way. It means he cared.

And it means he knows that many doctors don't remember diddly about medications!

The number of times I have been prescribed stuff that is not meant to be mixed with the other stuff I've been prescribed and the pharmacist has pointed it out to me and told me to go back to the gp!

I always listen to the pharmacists as they are often more knowledgeable about specific medications.

He was asking possibly as (a) it is an unusual medicine for a little one to be on, and (b) it can be dangerous with some tablets to give them crushed.

He was doing his job and opersonally I'd rather me held up for a little while for that reason, than anything untoward happen.

My mum was given a prescription by her old GP. The pharmacist questioned it. I am so glad he did - when followed up by pharmacist there and then, turned out GP had given a much higher dose than he meant to and it would have been very very dangerous for my mum if she had taken them!

I have to have my current prescription questioned every time as it is a much higher dose than most people would have. But after a short chat it is sorted and I get it.

I think the pharmacist was correct and diligent to spend time ensuring your ds2 took his medicines safely.

What I would say, is that my gran and grandad were both pharmacists, and ran a pharmacist shop, with my dad as well, and I used to work there in uni holidays, and I was AMAZED at the people who came in - and how difficult they could be over medicines. For example - we always had to ask 'are you taking any other medicines or tablets?' because if you asked 'any other medications' they would think that meant liquid medicines. And people often wouldn't want to give you that sort of info - 'it's none of your business what medicines I take' - even though that could be life threatening! Or aspirin was another regular cause of conflict - I can reproduce a real conversation I had...

"I want some aspirin."
"Which strength would you like?"
"I just want aspirin."
"Well there are 2 strengths, one for headaches/pain relief, one for taking regularly to keep you blood thin".
"It's none of your business what I take it for."
"Well, this is the one for headaches, this is the one for the blood, which one do you want."
"Listen to me. I am 80 years old, and as far as I am concerned there is only one strength of aspirin. I have never heard such rudeness before."
"Well.....are you going to take it every day?"
"I've told you, NO!"
"Ok. (Takes deep breath). Would you like soluble or insoluble........"
(Customer explodes in blue light of smoke."

That is honestly word for word true, and not unusual...

The pharmacists do need to get it right - they know much more pharmacology than GPs, particularly about how medicines behave alongside other medicines. I can't remember which it was but there was a particular over the counter medicine (possibly Rennies? but may have made that up) which reacted very badly with (I think) blood pressure tablets, so they do need to check everything. You can just imagine the headlines if something had gone wrong - 'consultant pharmacist knew mother was dosing child in dangerous way and STILL gave her the medicine'. And they also check strengths because again, if a GP makes a mistake with a decimal point it could be lethal.

Sorry for the long post!!!

Can I just add, if I'd given her the wrong aspirin, (and I'm not a pharmacist, so I wouldn't have made that decision had she not finally given me the info) then the aspirin would either be useless (low dose one taken for headaches) or potentially lethal (high dose taken every day).

I've had this expererince several times.

dd is on lifelong meds - as a baby at leat two that were unlicensed for children and one that generally isn't given to children under 12. My ususl pharmacist iss fab, the locums a PITA. Yes I know they are only doing their job but when a drug is prescribed by a specialist in the field you'd think you could avoid the third degree.

One of dd's meds was tablet form, given in ICU by crushing and dissolving. At one time it was switched to liquid form but they omitted to say that is was very difficult to get hold of in liquid and had to be kept at a certain temp so we switched back.

hulababy: "I always listen to the pharmacists as they are often more knowledgeable about specific medications."

But this one wasn't, was he? It appears he didn't have a clue about the stuff, and was completely inefficient about finding out.

Bet he's applying to do mature-student medicine.

As far as I am concerned he was doing his job. He was finding out. Maybe he'd not come across it in this dose/for a child before. Who knows? At least he cared to find out.

Believe me, after my mum's potential dangerous encounter - we don't take the risk.

My son is away at residential school so when hes away I have to use the local pharmacy for his medicines. I know the pharmacist so well now that if i have a problem i can ring up and speak to him by his first name and he know who i am.

I agree that the pharmacist was just making sure that he did not give you potentially harmful medicines.

It would, however, have been more customer friendly to say, "I will check up on this if you don't mind, can you leave your phone number so that I can reach you when I know the answer?"

I always bulk buy medicines as we don't get Lemsip, Calpol here in Germany, and the iboprofen is much dearer. The pharmacists alway query the amount of medicine, and what I am needing it for. Never had problems getting everything though.

A good pharmacist should discuss your medication with you, check that you are comfortable and have understood the doctor's instructions etc. Medicaton and prescribing erros are amoungst the most common errors in health, and this double check (luckily) picks up many of them. Mostly it's mixing up similar names, getting dosage wrong, or missing interactions between drugs. Sometimes the effect of getting it wrong is minor, but occasionally their can be fatal consequences. Pharmacists are very highly trained and know a great deal about drugs (they don't just make up packets of pills!) and as this is their area of expertise, yes they do know more than doctors. This one may have not had the best customer skills, but given that you presented what probably seemed an inconsistent way to administer the medicine I can see that he may have been concerned. I don't think you were unreasonable to get fed up and go elsewhere, but I do think it's concerning that your local pharmacist didn't talk to you about the medicine at all. I've always had at least the quick chat even when picking up cough medicine (usually the check about asthma)! Of course as parents (and patients too) we also have a responsibility to check things, as pharmacists too can get things wrong (this is often caused by manufacturors who put all their drugs in the same coloured packages and call them very very similar names). To err is human.

on a slightly irrelevant note, but in praise of pharmacists

I left my pram on the pavement near the pharmacy. I had got the DCS in the car and forgot the pram!!!

I was in a total panic as i was in the supermarket car park when i realised, so i phoned the pharmacy, and the pharmacist went to get it for me and wheeled it back to the shop and kept it there until i could get back!