Refill Roulette

There is a reason some medications require a prescription.

Because their use and administration should be initiated and monitored by a doctor.  Despite you knowing your body and what you need, the best thing for your health is that you diagnosed and treated by a physician.

There are many doctors who will load you up on refills....tell you to take it when you feel symptoms coming on, keep taking it as long as you need to...have a nice day, don't call us, we'll call you.

These doctors suck.

Just got a call from someone who picked up liquid Nystatin for oral thrush.  Swish & swallow.  Decided that she also had a yeast infection so she took a fluconazole tablet she had lying around.  THEN she called me to find out what to do.

Well, it's kind of too late at that point.  You are using an liquid antifungal to clear up your mouth and throat, then swallowing so it travels down the esophagus and treats the oral tract.  It will be absorbed and should also provide some coverage for the vaginal yeast infection.  It's not the drug of choice, however, so your doctor may have chosen to change your treatment for the thrush to oral fluconazole, which would treat both.

We'll never know....because your doctor loaded you up with extra tablets so you could self-diagnose and treat.

Situations like this are the reason that refills should be limited.  Especially on antibiotics.  You just think you know everything.  I guess you could be right....hey, they do it that way in Mexico.  The pharmacias don't require a prescription for anything but controlled substances.  And everybody knows that the health care system in Mexico is...well, it's great, right?  Clearly they know what they are doing.

Nobody is trying to get an extra copay out of you.  If you're sick, you're sick.  Get the proper treatment and care.  Let me ask you this....what do you spend money and time on?  Could you possibly change the order of importance so that health care topped that list?  I'm just saying...if we were talking a serious, life threatening drug interaction would you wish you had made time?  Is it really that bad to take a few minutes to call a pharmacy or your doctor or to head to the urgent care (although I think most urgent cares are only one step above the pharmacias in Mexico)?