SO MAD AT stinkin pharmacist I could.....URRRGGHHHH!

I'm sorry that you had this situation come up Blondie..

Just FYI that in VA and some other states now..Tramadol is now a controlled substance...

And I don't want to get you upset as I do sympathize with you....but it actually is the Pharmacists job to monitor if a patient is trying to pick up their medicine early...It comes up on their screen if it is less than 30 days...whether you have insurance or not is also a factor...

Most Dr.s now work together with the Pharmacy to cross reference things and alert the Dr. like this one did in this case...

I'm glad that you were able to talk to your Dr. about this and he trusts you...and it all got straightened out with him which is most important.

Most CP'ers have to sign contracts now that state we cannot get our medicine sooner than the 28-30 days...as well as many other rules...

Again...I really do feel for you as you weren't trying to do anything wrong....I'm not trying to side with them or excuse their misunderstanding..just explaining it from the other side..

If I were you..personally I would just let it go or speak with the Parmacist next time and just say.."ohh..I truly was just trying to save a trip ..not because I had run out..sorry for the misunderstanding"....I'm the type that would rather just smooth this one over and move forward...

Since to me...you really do want the Pharmacist as someone who is on your team..I know my guy by name and ask him about his family..always chat with him so he knows me and my situation..

If you don't want to do that with this one...maybe just transfer to another place if you choose...and start fresh with someone new...

I just wanted to say that even though it's frustrating...they really were trying to do their job and report back to the Dr...

Again..sorry you had to go through this:(

I agree, I found that ironically when I was not diagnosed and was not taking regular pain medication that the ER was more then happy to keep giving me medication, but now that I have a firm diagnoses, and multiple surgeries and a long list of doctors to back me up, and take a regular regimen of pain medication I find it that they look at me NOW as if I'm seeking, I've always gone to the same ER so you'd think they would now understand, but its like they act as if BECAUSE Ive kept going there that I'm seeking which is backwards. Like if they treat me like this then how do they treat the true seekers?

I have a great relationship with my pharmacist. Like if I have a script thats post-dated to say get filled on the 6th of a month and its the 5th and I've ran out of instant release which dont get me wrong isn't hard if you take one extra pill say like every 6th day then he will actually give me the amount that it calls for for a days period and all I have to do is let him hold the script till it can be filled in the morning that way he knows i wont get it filled eslewhere, which i would never do to him, that way he can't end up shorted on his supply at the end of the month or whenever they count their supply you know. He's always been extremely respectful. I've always used him, even years before being diagnosed with Crohns disease, I used him for my asthma medication. The other pharmacist always used to look at me weird at the pharmacy until one day he asked my mom when she picked up my pain medicine 'let me ask you if you dont mind, what does chris have?' and she said crohns disease, and he apologized and ever since then he's been really simpathetic.

You shoud really find a pharmacist that you like and continue to use him forever as long as you can, their hard to find. And I tend to find that the chain pharmacies are not the way to go, such as walgreens and rite aid, their more like fill your script and take your money.

Once at a walgreens I had a problem, my surgeon had written me for vicodin 7.5mg, this was yeeeaars ago because now I take oxycodone 30mg and 90mg oxycontin, but these were just 7.5 vicodin, and it was 7 days worth, well...9 days after getting it filled i got another 7 day supply from the surgeon, and went to the same walgreens to get it filled just cuz it happened to be close...and she told me she couldnt fill it and she reserves the right to fill it or not, i was like what are you talking about? it a 7 day script and its been 9 days, because she had told me it was to early, and thats when she told me well she reserves the right ot decline to fill anything. And this was even from the same doctor both times so its not like anything would make her think i was 'doctor shopping' or trying to pull something. I just to this day dont understand it, i went to the store manager and they gave me the head pharmacist number and the regional pharmacist number and i called both and told them they completely apologized and said it would be handled, and i don tknow whether from me or not but i never saw that lady there again.

Blondie,
I had a bad experience with a chain pharmacy that my family had used for over 10 years after my first surgery. I had been getting the same meds , filled each month, at the same strength, by the same doctor for over a year- the chain pharmacy hired a new, brand new out of pharmacy school pharmacist who didn't want to fill my oxycontin. She kept telling me that they were "out", but I figured out pretty fast that she was just saying they were out because she didn't want to fill it. I found out because I called one time before going there and the head pharmacist told me that it was there and they would fill it. I live less than 5 minutes from this pharmacy, but by the time that I got there, the lead pharmacist was gone and lo and behold, this young woman was there- of course , the store was "out" again. My husband went down there a few hours later and miraculously, they had it back in stock- of course it was NOT a delivery day.....
Anyway, I had recieved a phone call from my doctor's office, asking me if I knew why she was calling him to question my dosages- on all of my meds- my muscle relaxant, my lyrica and of course my oxycontin and my breakthrough med- she told him that she determined that I was on too strong of a dose of lyrica and of oxycontin, etc......all of my meds. I was only on 30 mg of oxycontin twice a day and she refused to fill the scripts. I called the district the next day and was told that a pharmacist has discretion when it comes to filling any prescription and can refuse for any reason.....even one they make up if they want to. Needless to say, they lost not only my prescriptions, but my entire family, and they also lost any patients who went to my pm's practice because after she called him , not once, but four times in less than an hour over my dosages, he decided that none of his patients would be allowed to fill there prescriptions there......and it is still a policy of his practice today......I went to one of the smaller, privately owned pharmacies around me and I have not had one problem since. In fact, most pain patients seem to do better when it comes to having to deal with smaller pharmacies as they tend to value their customers more.....we aren't just a prescription number .

I can certainly understand where a pharmacist has the right, even the responsibility to monitor a person's medications to ensure there are no possible interactions and to call the prescribing doctor to confirm dosing instructions if there is any question, but I just can not see where the pharmacist has any legal standing to refuse to fill a legal prescription on their own judgment.

A couple of years ago several pharmacists here in IL got in trouble for refusing to fill scripts for "the morning after pill" and a couple of the pharmacies they worked for also got into a lot of trouble too for backing their decision. I don't recall if any changes were made to IL law or if it was merely clarification of the existing laws but not too long after that notices started popping up at all pharmacies saying that any medication Rx'd would be filled and that neither the pharmacy nor the pharmacist had any right to refuse to fill a Rx.